Don't need Prius until winter - How long do I have to wait to buy at MSRP?

Hey, Balkan & N3FOL,

N3FOL : I wish we could all get on the same page with "invoice" & "MSRP". If YOU paid only $1,000 over "invoice" then YOU got a pretty good deal (a discount, in fact) because "invoice" is what the dealer pays Toyota for the car (in most cases NOT divulged to the public, but can be found in places like Edmund's, etc.). The dealer then turns around & sells it to you for MSRP (if you're lucky enough to still find one who does). Last I knew, there was about a $2,000 profit per car for a dealer sell'g at MSRP [the difference between MSRP (the "window sticker") & invoice]. I think it's unconscionable for a dealer to try to get $1,000, $2,000, $3,000, $5,000, $7,000, or even $10,000 MORE profit from us per car than the $2,000 they're already going to make if they sell one for just MSRP. Admittedly, a few short months ago a pkg 5 or 6 could be had for $2,000 off of MSRP (& other pkg's for lesser amounts of discount), but the dealer wasn't losing much (if any) of his profit because that $2,000 discount was shown right on the window sticker as being subtracted from the MSRP price. Nice deals back then (when supplies were higher than demand), if you were in a position to buy.

Balkan : I think somebody's math is wrong. If your dealer only gets one Prius per week, that's 52 cars per year. And you say you're around #100 on his list, so that would put you about 2 years out to get your Prius. I don't know how he is tell'g you your wait is only going to be 11 months unless he frequently gets extras. Back in Nov 2004 when production was real low & the demand for the new hatchback style was start'g to take off, the 1st dealer I approached in my area told me he only got 2-3 Priuses per month & if I got on his list that day that I wouldn't get my car until Feb 2007 (27-28 months) because he had such a long wait'g list because he was one of the few in CT sell'g at only MSRP. I think I heard eventually that enough people went to other dealers & paid up to $5,000 extra (to aviod the long wait), that his list was cut down to only about a year to get one from him at MSRP. So, maybe your dealer is expect'g a lot of the people on his list to bail out for the same reason (which will make all of his customers' waits shorter).

I didn't see your post #20 until after I submitted this. How did you chg from around #100 to only #30 so quickly? That's quite a bit better, but nevertheless (at one Prius per week) will put your wait at about 7 1/2 months (I stuck it out for 6 months to get mine---I felt sad & depressed all the time but it was worth it in the end).

Ken (in Bolton,Ct)

 

So, see. Already we're seeing a problem with "the list." One person told you that you were #30 and another told you that you were #100. Either they had 70 Prii come in in one day or else "the list" isn't as concrete as they are trying to convince you it is. If you have the time, you should call around; since all deposits are refundable (or, at least, should be), it doesn't hurt to try to look at other dealers.

Maybe the wait is 3-5 months. Maybe it's longer. Maybe it's shorter. The point is, I don't think that you actually know or have any way of knowing what they're basing their estimate on. As you pointed out in a previous post, it's unclear how they're getting their estimates since their math doesn't add up (1 per week + #100 on the list does NOT equal 3-5 months).

Unless you have some other information that this dealer is reliable in their estimates, I don't think that their estimate means anything.

 

I have been looking for a Prius for a couple weeks now in NJ. The ONLY consistant piece of information that I have gotten is "they are out of stock everywhere". Other than that the wait lists range from 4 weeks to 6 months. And most never know when they are coming in. But then again a few dealers seem to know in advance and even some do not take waiting lists. I cringe to think how much they add on over MSRP!

 

Yeah. I have the feeling that the more experienced guy may just be more experienced in sounding like he's being straight with you. That's such a typical salesman tactic: "Look. I'm going to level with you. . . " I think our salesman used some line like, "I'm too old and I've been doing this too long to bother lying" . . . that was a cute line.

This type of ordering can happen, I believe, but I think it almost never happens this way. My understanding is that a dealership gets some allotment of cars that Toyota sends their way. They can trade these cars with other dealerships in the area (usually before they even get to the region); some dealers are willing to do this. Others are not.

My guess is that, these days, the dealerships don't even bother doing trades since they can sell whatever comes onto their lots as fast as they want.

EDIT: Oh. And I would be very surprised if this type of ordering ever happened as far in advance as they're saying. Basically, until you get a VIN from the dealer, I wouldn't count on any car being allocated to you personally.

 

Every dealer I've ever talked to made it clear that their deposit was refundable. You should definitely ask to make sure it's refundable, of course. I might think that dealers with non-refundable deposits would be worse to deal with overall, but maybe I'm wrong.

You probably don't want to put down deposits at 20 dealerships, even if you have the money to do so. But, I don't think there's anything wrong with calling around to, say, 50 dealerships and putting a deposit down at a few of them that you like.

It may be that some dealerships have significantly shorter waits than the 3-5 month timeframe. The only way you'll know is if you ask (since you definitely can't trust another dealership to give you straight information).

Have we mentioned recently how this is a bad time to be looking to buy a Prius?

Who knows? If you can't find a Prius now, you may actually be better off doing your search in a couple months when people aren't frothing at the mouth quite so much about gas prices.

 

Yeah. I feel your pain. We had a similar issue when we were looking to get our Prius back in '05. Right when we were ready to buy, there was a gas spike (I think it went up to . . . *gasp* . . . $3/gallon). Our desire to buy had nothing to do with the gas prices; we knew we were going to get a Prius for ~a month before the gas prices went up, but hadn't gotten around to putting an order in. I felt like saying, "No! The rules of the waiting list shouldn't apply to us, since we knew we were going to get one before gas prices went up!"

In the end, we got lucky and only had to wait ~a month. I hope you get as lucky.

 

A-1 Toyota of New Haven, CT is still selling at MSRP and it is not a problem to get a refund returned. Also, Lia Toyota in Wilbraham, MA is asking MSRP and was great to deal with. They got my car in for me first. Good luck, the wait is well worth it!eace:

 

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