Sorry for a little OT, but guys, you lived in the promised Land! Here in germany the Prius executive is 45.600 US$ ...and one galeon regular fuel is 8$ anybody sent me a green card? Andreas
Why is no one complaining about these horrible consumers who are taking advantage of the car dealerships by purchasing SUVs for ten thousand dollars under MSRP? It's disgusting how they are driven by greed and only care about paying as little as possible for a vehicle.
...and in the meantime, Washington is taking its merry time to burst the oil price speculation bubble (up to $142 today), which oil lobbyists have urged them to do in Congressional hearings. When that bubble bursts--and it will soon, since the stock market is melting-- those inflated Prius prices will deflate in a hurry. Be patient.
Its a seller's market for econocars, buyer's market for gas hogs. Simple economics. Get over it. Whoever said that car dealers play fair, even in the best of times?
Free market capitalism using the law of supply and demand. Couple that with a naive turnip rolling off the truck and you end up getting gutted like a fish and hung out to cure. No fault save my own. Atlanta area. Touring Sedan, #6 pkg, tint, side moulding, carpets, rear bumper scuff protection and "ToyotoGuard. Dealer got me exactly what I wanted in less than a month. Out the door $37,658.83. It doesn't pay to either get too obsesive about getting one of the damn things or to not read every line, dotted I and crossed T. Lesson learned again. When will I finally wake up? I nominate this price as a record-setter.
What can the dealer do with a salvaged car? He does have to tell people it's salvaged, right? Because lots of insurance companies won't insure salvaged vehicles...
Yah, and now half those people who bought houses (because they were delusional and believed someone making $40K a year could actually afford a $450K house) are going through foreclosure/bankruptcy/etc. And now my tax dollars are going to them to bail them out for their stupidity? :rant: All this will do for the Prius is make sure it's scorned in a couple years because it's not the cure all to high gas prices. Sure it helps, but it's not the end-all and be-all. And like my house, which has lost $75,000 of "value" because of the housing market downturn, will my car also be devalued? :rant::rant:
Take a look at Ebay. Half of the Prius being sold there are salvage title cars. When repaired many banks, credit unions will issue a loan for a vehicle. My bank has a range of value for a vehicle they will loan. An example would be for say a 2005 Prius with 120,000 miles. Loan value would be $18,000 to $22,000. Because it is a salvage title they will only loan on the lower number ($18,000). Many insurance companies will also insure with these same values. My credit union and insurance company did. I didn't have to search around. When you sell a salvage vehicle you have to reveal its history. A dealer would have to do the same. It's all in how bad you want it.
eace: Sorry about your home value. We are all feeling the pinch. As for those poor people who bought more home than they could afford... it's not all their fault. Somebody loaned them $450,000 knowing full well they couldn't afford it. C'mon loaning somebody 125% of their homes value anticipating that the home will be worth in 5 years. Stupid on both parts. We are all paying for this,.... like we did in the Savings and Loan mess, Chrysler bankruptcy etc.. Maybe it's time to stop this and let the cream rise to the top.
For Prius over MSRP, dealers can only ask for what the market is 'willing' to pay.....it works like a stock market. Asking $5k over MSRP is outrageous, no doubt.....but why not saying whoever accepted this deal is even more outrageous (or downright stupid)?
Ouch. In an outlying area of Silicon Valley (actually outside of Silicon Valley) there is a new housing development where they are selling new homes for $500k. In the previous release, the same homes sold for $800k. Now the people who paid $800k are suing the builder because the price dropped. I could have told them, nothing in Gilroy is worth $800k.
In Vegas most (except one...Findlay..where I ordered mine)-is MSRP (others are asking $3000.00 over to start with). I ordered mine on 5/29(now 4 months waiting)...and will arrive next week! I didn't care for the color (except black...have a prestine Buick GN at home..black is no color to have out here)....will receive Silver Pine Mica(my wife's 1st choice)/package 6. I wanted the Touring (which would now be October)...figured the BT strut and floorboard brace wouldn't hurt (not intending to pull 1G through a slalom)
I mentioned some of the strange pricing to the salesman when I picked up my Prius today (at MSRP). He said Toyota doesn't have any rules regarding the prices at which the dealers sell Toyotas. For Scions, on the other hand, the dealer is required to have a "simple pricing" setup where a given price is in effect for all comers.
Why would anyone buy a house that overpriced? Good lord. At least we bought ours way before the prices went nuts (1998).
<pewd steps up onto the soapbox > there should be a law against charging over MSRP ; and to be fair, if a dealer is offering cash back, that would be illegal too? y'all would say heck no, that is immoral, i insist on paying full MSRP price, right? I can't accept a discount? the heck with a free market, lets put price controls and loss protections in place. command economy , yeah thats the ticket. toyota, you are ordered to produce 25 million prii per year, until every one of the masses has one, at a MSRP of no more than $X. ok for your final exam, write a 3 page paper on the following: why did toyota invent the prius in the first place? what was their incentive to do so? are they meeting their goals? is their stragety working? will they keep making the prius? support your arguments with data from history and economics books. extra credit: does the government owe you a check if you make a bad investment decision and take a loss on an asset? discuss the impact on the free market system if they do so. like , say, paying you for that loss in your house value, or reimbursing me for my stock market losses. hey cool, i can't lose - the price goes up i win, it goes down the government covers my loss. woot! gimmie, gimmie, gimmie. <getting off my soapbox now> some of y'all need to read some economic history books.
Wow that's ridiculous...I got my wife 08 Prii last Mother's day for $500 top of Invoice Price... It just happened that the sales manager is a long friend of mine... Got a pkg 6 from a customer who backout on the deal, (he must be banging his head now)....