Outrageous Price .. prius over MSRP

Prii were in hot demand back in 2005 as well, when I bought mine. There were long waits, and many dealers where charging above MSRP.

But I did lots of research online, and called every Toyota dealer in a 50-mile radius. Finally found one charging MSRP, and waited...

 

One Word - GREED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - If logic escapes me, how do you justify the $5K markup when the dealer already has a built in profit even if it is sold under MSRP. If it is sold at MSRP, the better the profit. Yes I know, add on the additional $5K and it is even more profit.. But, it is also gouging and taking advantage of an already miserable situiation. My advice, go elsewhere and find a Pri for at least MSRP. I am sure there are many dealers that still have some sort of moral compass in this world!!!

 

OK, let's make this nice and simple. You have five apples and Suzie has five apples. Farmer Jones, the apple grower, suggests you sell them for $1.00 apiece. There are 100 people who want apples. Suzie decides to sell hers for $5.00 apiece, seeing all the people who want them. 75 people then go from her stand to your stand, since you are still only selling them for $1.00 apiece. Five people are very happy, and 70 people are very sad because Farmer Jones only gives you five apples a year. Is that very moral, making 70 people very sad?

 

And if the $5 apples that Suzie sold made another five people moderately happy? Not necessarily a bad thing.

 

Guys? Just say no. I did, and ended up with an '08, package two base model, for 26,300. In Los Angeles no less. Saying yes to inflated prices only inflates prices. Stop it.

 

I didn't say we didn't buy our house before the price went nuts. I simply said it's lost $700,000 in value as in from the peak.

Purchase price was $545K in 2002. In 2005, market was going nuts and equivalent houses in our neighborhood were going for $1 to $1.5 million. Our house was appraised at $1.13. We decided to cash out and put our house on the market in May of 2005 for $975K which was way below what others were selling for. We got dozens of full price offers within days only to have them all withdrawn when we had to disclose that there was still a pending lawsuit with the previous owners(we were suing the sellers because they intentionally didn't disclose major flooding issues with the property). Our house was just appraised now at a little over $400K. We bought before the peak. We never took out any of the equity that built up rapidly because of the market. We were good little people doing the responsible thing. Now we're paying the price.

 

Ah, lost 70,000 in value (not 700,000 like you previously said). I was hoping that was a typo.

What's the housing market in the East Bay like (yeah, I can - and do - check that online, but it's nice to hear a report from the ground, too)? I ask because a couple of folks said I was nuts not to sell a house I still own there at the height of the bubble. Since I don't owe any money on it and make good money renting it out, I said I'd be nuts to sell it right then. I just want to see who was right.

 

No. The second was a typo. I've fixed it above. Yes, $700,000. From about 1.1 million to just over 400K in 3 years.

 

Um....that seems kinda high for a base 2.

 

Can you make your mortgage payments? If so, then you're okay. And you might want to take the opportunity to have your property reassessed for property taxes. If you can get that lowered, you'll pay less tax.

Unless you need to sell, just stay put. The market will rebound, although you'll never see $1.13 million again.

I bought mine for $80,000 in 1987. Last appraisal (last year right before the subprime bust) was $545,000. I think it's probably around $425,000 now. I'm not planning to sell so I'm not worried about the market. There is always demand in San Diego, my house is in great shape, I've made smart improvement and while my neighborhood isn't great, as gas prices go up, people are going to want to live closer to where they work. And I'm close to everything.

 

Not this again! :fear:

Guys, you can't argue with people like Barcelona Red Lass or rkskeet. I have a sneaking suspicion they're so radically left wing that they don't believe in a capitalist free economy. I can see no other explanation for their refusal or inability to understand the market economics at work here.

The Prius is not milk...its not water. Its a thing and if you don't want to pay what the market is willing to pay, don't buy the f'in thing! You don't NEED a Prius. Nobody is hurting you by asking that you pay $X for a Prius, its a discretionary expenditure.

 

And if you were to sell your Prius tomorrow, you would only sell it for the NADA or KBB used car value? Right.

 

The big move to a Prius is the $$ savings in gas. There has to come a point when the Prius is commanding $xxxx over sticker and the SUV is commanding $xxxx under sticker that the SUV is the way to go.

I am driving my 2nd Prius but would much prefer to be driving the 4Runner I had in between the two. Simple economics, based on projected gas prices, made my decision easy.

In March 2008 I paid $1,000 below sticker for a package #2 and got an incredible value for my trade-in (the 4Runner). With today's Prius and SUV prices there's absolutely no way I could justify going from the 4Runner to the Prius.

 

People who are looking to buy a Prius need to do the math. Rather than pay thousands of dollars over MSRP, they should walk away and just buy a small fuel-efficient sedan. They will not make up the difference, even at high gas prices, if they pay too much over MSRP.

 

And you base this on gas costing how much a gallon? How much will it cost next year? You can't make a statement like you just made because you simply don't have enough information.

 

In the real world, there are lots of Toyota dealers selling Priuses at list price. And there are lots of dealers charging a premium. But it's the latter you hear about more in the chatgroups. More emphasis on the negative--like the media.

People with bad experiences always seem to comment more than those with good ones. Maybe they have more reason to.

 

Regarding fuel efficiency, the Prius gets about 50% better gas mileage around town than a typical Corolla or Civic and costs about 50% more. Figure on $16K vs $24K, if you shop around. 30mpg vs 45-48 mpg.The cost of gas figures in as well, of course. But those numbers are good for starters. Part of that advantage is the power-off at traffic lights. That is a big gas waster--there are far too many traffic lights in the suburbs.

 

Example:

Quoted mileage of Xd is 29 combined.

Quoted mileage of prius is 46 combined.

To make up the typical $10,000 price difference between the two, you'd have to drive 157K miles in the prius to make back that money with $5 / gallon gas.

However, in reality, most people on the Xd forum are reporting in excess of 40 MPG highway and 36 or so combined. While most here are not reporting similar percentage gains on the prius over epa estimates. So the reality is, you'd probably have to drive close to 350K miles to make up the difference.

On top of that, if you pay a $4K markup on the Prius while Xds can be had for invoice, you'll now have to drive about 450K miles in the prius to make up the difference.

Major factors playing in Prius's favor:

1) If gas goes to $10 gallon(actually when, not if), then that payback time goes up much quicker.

2) Prius is probably a lot more reliable than an Xd.

3) Prius has more space than an Xd, but not by a lot.

However, the Xd is faster and handles better.

 

I never bought a car to pay for itself, and I'm not about to start now.

 

Sandy Springs Toyota in Atlanta wants a $5,000 premium over MSRP for a package 5! Someone will pay it, too. Wow.