Can you do anything if the price drops?

No matter when or where or what you buy or drive a Prius, someone will buy it for less or have a higher MPG then you.

And when you add in your dealing with car dealer, rebates or price drops due to less tax credit or options package and buying it out of state.

My advice stop checking price, you might feel hurt every time you do.

Start enjoying your Prius every time you drive and smile every time you fill up and at the next pump is a driver of a SUV, PICKUP or some other black hole that is sucking the money and life out of them.

In short, your looking at the past, you can't change it, if you keep going back to it, it can hurt today!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Christina @ May 26 2007, 03:22 AM) [snapback]450305[/snapback]</div>

Christina, everything is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it today. Today the black Prius is worth $23000 because someone signed the contract. On your sale's day the dealer or salesman may have believed that more than one party was actually going to buy the car and held out for MSRP using the fear tactic that if you don't pay it, the next one will. Sometimes it works. Maybe sometimes it doesn't. The survey measures how you feel you were treated by the dealer. I recommend completing the survey honestly. If you feel you were treated well, say so. If you feel otherwise, say so.

If you are happy with the car's performance then be happy. When I bought there were no option package sales from Toyota, no special program financing, no haggling off MSRP. If you thought $23569 was too high then you shouldn't have paid it and bought another car from another dealer or at another time.

This reminds me of a story. Two girls are selling Girl Scout cookies door to door from a wagon. The younger one rings the doorbell and in the sales pitch says this is my last box and I can go home when it is sold. The person answering the door buys the cookies. The pair continue down the street and the older one tells the younger, if you say the same thing again they will sell faster.

 

As a dreaded car salesman myself (Fleet/Internet at least lol), I am always slightly amused when issues like this pop up.

It's never fun to pay for something only to find out that you could have spent less had you waited. What I find amusing is that people only seem to point the finger at car dealers when this happens. How about stocks? Or real estate? Does anyone call their stock broker asking for their money back if their stocks go down? I think not...

But here we are, with a giant target on our backs just because the perception is we're "dirty" or "sleazy".

I am not. The majority of my colleagues aren't either.

I find the sweeping generalizations annoying.

The Prius sells well. Frankly, I have no problem making as much profit as possible. There is nothing crooked about that. We are a business after all... If you don't see the value, DON'T PAY IT. We are just about the only business outside of the oil-companies that is criminalized for making profit (usually less than 10% BTW). I'm not looking for sympathy, but please recognize the ridiculous double-standard here...

In this circumstance clearly the salesman built enough urgency and value to make someone buy the vehicle. I didn't read about undue pressure or illegal tactics... just buyers remorse. That is not any dealer or salespersons fault.

Nor should they have to pay for it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Seaside2007 @ Jul 28 2007, 09:40 PM) [snapback]486881[/snapback]</div>

My heart bleeds for you. As soon as the B Ship is ready, I'll give you a call.

Tom

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Seaside2007 @ Jul 28 2007, 09:40 PM) [snapback]486881[/snapback]</div>

Not to be too much of an nice person, but in my recent buying experience all but two of the 15 or so sales people I dealt with said and did things, or tried to hide things that would have really negatively impacted me. Of the two that didn't, one was a fleet manager, so likely not on straight commision and the other was extremely new to the job. This has been typical over the last 15 years of car buying. I've had -one- sales person in my life that I'd return to. He was great and I still go to him first, in the hopes that he can get what I want.

I'm not talking about maximizing profit, I'm talking about doing it dishonestly in petty and not petty ways. All I could picture was someone who wasn't familiar with how the process works getting themselves screwed.

As far as other industries.. huh? The auto industry gets a lot of scrutiny because of the amount of problems and the size of the purchase and how easy it is to get screwed. Not just up front, but on going (bad mechanics, etc).

A large number of products -do- have pricing guarantees that favor the consumer. Some for items in this price range. I'm not surprised that cars don't, but there are many things that do.

The fact that you're "amused" by people getting screwed is interesting. Maybe you're new. Maybe you work for a dealership with very high values that doesn't try to gouge people. If so, more power to you.

 

Enjoy your new car and be happy. The next time you buy remember not to tell the salesanimal that you have to have one by the end of May. Let me be more clear about that: you had a self-imposed deadline; you got what you paid for and you paid for what you got.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Malarkey @ Jul 29 2007, 11:03 PM) [snapback]487293[/snapback]</div>

First, I am hardly "new", not that it would make any difference. Second, this person did NOT get "screwed".

My amusement stems from the fact that because this individual saw a better "deal" later, they assumed that somehow the dealer was in the wrong and they should somehow get thier money back...

I'm not looking for any sympathy. Just pointing out how ridiculous you as consumers sometimes are...

NOT to say there aren't crooks out there, just to say that it is nowhere NEAR the level that it is so widely determined by the people who think they got "screwed".

You mention the gravity of the situation when it comes to a large purchase like a car??? You stand to lose what? A couple of thousand bucks on the WORST car deal... yet if you finance a house a point too high it runs ten times that (and that kind of profit happens far more in that industry).

Paying PROFIT is not the same as being "screwed". Sometimes there are better deals. That happens with almost ANY product.

That doesn't mean that if you pay a 9% profit (the average margin at MSRP for a Toyota) you got "screwed".

As for the "B Ship" comment, go ahead and let me know where you work. I'll come in, waste hours of your day, tell you I want you to make no profit, and then cry about how you "screwed" me anyway when we finally reach an agreement. Then I'll play the world's tiniest violin when you think it's ridiculous too...

 

I would take it as a lesson - always haggle. If you can't get the price you want at one dealership walk out. Nothing makes a sales manager crankier than a customer walking away. The first car I bought from my local Toyota dealership I walked out three times. Eventually, I got the price I wanted they sold the car, and everybody was happy. I've since bought three other cars there - with a lot less hassle.