Premium prices...what the???

Waiting for my Prius Touring, Package 6. Made the deposit back at the end of May and got a good discount of MSR. Two weeks later everything went nuts and the prices went thru the roof.

 

i never understood people who pay "more" then MSRP. It defies common sense. Heck, I was disappointed I had to pay MSRP without getting any truly nice extras out of it at the very least.

I imagine some people in parts of the country are very trendy and got to have
something right away and simply throw money at the problem. Here in New England
I rarely hear of this happening. We are a bunch of stingy uncle scrooges up
here for the most part.

 

It's deja vu all over again.

Just think, if you bought a Prius when they were available deeply discounted, got HOV stickers, and drove very little so you didn't spend much on fuel, you could potentially sell your Prius for more than your total expenditure - resulting in negative cost per mile. You would have money for each mile your drove your Prius.

 

Heres an interesting story. About a month go I stopped in a local dealer to get a prius brochure and see what he had on the lot. The salesmen gave me the booklet and asked if I would give him my name etc for the records. I did and thought that was that. Since then I have visited a few other dealerships to test drive the Prius and check out the supply(or lack there of) of the Prius. Last Thursday I returned to the original dealership where I had gotten the brochure and scheduled a test drive for my wife on Saturday. The salemen I scheduled this with was a different one then I had originally spoken with. He told me basically what the other dealers had that you would need to be on a waiting list with a $500.00 deposit and said the car would besold MSRP. So guess what happened Saturday morning?????????? At 9:30 am I get a call from the salesmen who had given me the brochure telling me he had a prius that was available with package 6 and asked if I wanted it. I asked if the price was less then MSRP as many things in package 6 I didnt want? He said Oh no I want 1500 over the MSRP price. I told him I find that business practice very distasteful and I wouldnt purchase a car from him. Now keep in mind that dealer had a list of about 20 people all with deposits who were never called yet I was. No deposit nothing. Food for thought I'd say!

 

I think this is quite common now. I had a similar situation happen here in Houston...except they attempted to gouge me for 5k over MSRP!!! Needless to say...I wrote Toyota explaining the nefariousness of the situation and how I was extremely disappointed in these antics...

 

I just took a quick peek on the website for the dealer I bought my Prius from, they have 1 used Prius in stock selling for $32,990 WOW,,
this is over the price of a new 2008 Prius. I took a closer look at the car and it must be a package 6 because it has the leather seats and the Nav system. The mileage is 21,800 something like that..

To me this is crazy,, I would rather wait for a new 2009,, I'm glad I bought mine when I did

 

I was at our local Toyota dealership last night. When I walked in, I told the receptionist I'd like to speak to someone about a new car. A sales MANAGER came running out of his little office and proceeded to ask me what I was interested in. I told him a Prius. He looked at me in what appeared to be disgust and made sure I knew that there was quite a lengthy waiting list. I said I didn't mind. He then pawned me off on the nearest ASSOCIATE that barely knew how to speak English. I thought the whole scene was rather rude. If I had shown an interest in the Camry, Avalon or 4-Runner, would this sales manager have done the same thing? Very odd...

Anyway, the sales ASSOCIATE was telling me about the price gouging going on in California that you all are talking about. He said their practices were extremely unethical and he reassured me that would not be the case if I were to purchase. I took what he said with a grain of salt and got on the 3-5 month list for a package #2 2008-09 with MSRP $24,430. Not sure if that MSRP he quoted me will stick, even though I made him write it down on my papers he had written up.

Also, I had to fill out rental car papers to test drive the only Prius this dealership had. The dealership basically was renting this Prius full time just to provide test drives. Anyone else encounter that?

 

For those of you getting on long waiting lists with verbal agreements from the salesperson to buy at MSRP:

Make sure the dealer you're buying from has demonstrated in the past (2004-2006) that they honor their commitment to sell at MSRP. Try to find previous buyers from that time period and confirm that the dealer didn't try to pull any funny business once the car became available (and that management hasn't changed).

I had someone try that on the first Prius I bought - they tried to add on $2k on to MSRP once the car showed up, citing changes in market conditions. OTOH, the folks at Toyotatown Stockton honored their commitment, and said that in the long-run, the owner felt it wasn't worth alienating buyers just to take advantage of a temporary market condition.

 

Did you reward them for their policy by going back to Toyotatown for your new TCH?

 

Its the perfect Prius storm. Demand is way up due to gas being up 33% in 2 months, and a fair deal of positive press (CR for example). Meanwhile supply of '08s is drying up while Toyota retools the line to start making '09s. Bet they are kicking themselves that they didn't spit out a few more '08s first. Would have been like printing money. Of course no way to know that in March, when my local dealer had 8-10 on the lot.

Rob