The Angst of the Wait

Sorry you're in one of the non-priority regions of the country...But, think about what you'd tell your kids who are counting down the days until Christmas. Find new ways to occupy yourself .

 

i waited 9 months
I survived by reading John's website http://john1701a.com/

 

Reading PriusChat helps... so does :icecream:

I waited 7 whole months! Your car will arrive in no time!

 

I ordered ours the same day, found out a week later I'm #5 on the waitlist. Specified any color except white (wife don't like) or black (don't want to wash the car 4 times a day), and any package. What's this about non-priority regions? Where does Minnesota stand in this?

 

Toyota has been trying to fill backlog orders to minimize the wait for the Prius with the 2005, since it turned out immensely more popular than they anticipated. They look at areas of the country with the longest waiting lists and ship the most units to those areas first. This is from an article I read last year, my being in the San Francisco Bay area, where the wait list often reached 200+ at every Toyota dealer, caused them to ship more units to this area, now the wait for one here is about 4-6 weeks as opposed to the 8-9 months it was last year. Unfortunately, if you're looking for a specific list as to who is getting more Prii shipped to them, I'm afraid I can't provide one...I have no idea where Minnesota ranks. What I recommend is to call some dealers around and compare the wait times in your area.

 

My dealer told me the wait list was the shortest for package 6 and that the wait for his dealership was about two months. I bought package 3 and had to wait about six months for my first offer but seven months to get the color I wanted. I started out in the low 500's on the wait list. I signed up mid September 04 and bought in April 11, 05.

 

My wife and I waited five months the first time we ordered a Prius. When the car arrived in November, the dealer tried to overcharge us, so we cancelled the deal and re-ordered from another dealer. We then waited three more months.

The two waits were completely different. During that first wait, we were - like you are now - in an agony of anticipation. We were thrilled every time we saw a Prius. We talked about it at home.

Having been burned, we hardly dared think about the Prius during the second wait. When we saw one, we were irritated instead of thrilled - especially if it was blue, the color we'd ordered. Worst of all was seeing a brand-new blue Prius with the Colorado Springs dealer's plates just a few days after we'd cancelled the deal. It might have been the car we'd ordered.

But once your car arrives, you'll quickly forget the agony of waiting. And our long wait has made us appreciate having the car even more. Plus, we were able to make a much larger down payment in February than we could have made in November, so we saved on interest as well as on the retail price!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(michaelmcgaw\";p=\"90288)</div>

Actually, I was crazy to begin with. Waiting 6 1/2 months for my Prius only made it worse. After 5 months, I was forced to either up my package level from an RW (2004 #1) to an AM (2004 #7) or wait an additional 6 months thanks to a total lack of entry level Prii.

For me, the hardest part of the wait was the last week. While the dealership told me that my Prius was on its way, they still claimed not to have a VIN, leading me to wonder if they were truly up front with me.

If it's any consolation, after 11 months of ownership I am still absolutely thrilled with my Prius (something I can not say about any other vehicle I've ever owned). So hang in there, the wait is worth it.

 

Ordered my #4 May 12. I'm waiting impatiently as well. #7 on the list, and because I'm not picky on color, my 2-3 month wait should be much shorter, unless no one ahead of me passes on one. Checking PriusChat daily (hourly) to get my fix.

Chap

 

Well being here will help. Then go to http://techinfo.toyota.com/ and for $10 a day you can down load the owners manual and commit it to memory. Then down load Prius New Car Features and that will get you more detail of how the car works. The next step is down loading the service manuals all three volumes. You also will find directions there to get the paper copies of all of these. You may suffer sticker shock for the hard copies though. After that it is long runs and cold showers and more PriusChat! 8)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(michaelmcgaw\";p=\"90288)</div>

It may be sooner than you think - I ordered mine two days after you and I pick it up tomorrow ... I wasn't expecting it until end of May - mid June at the earliest.

 

Hmmm, I was told 3 months here in NJ. Is that wishfull thinking or was the salesman pulling my leg to get the deposit?

 

We joined the waiting list here last April - wanted package 7. Here, they were only selling 5,7 & 9. Shortly before we were to get ours, we called and asked to be upgraded to include the navigations system and were told that we would have to go to the bottom of the list for changing the package. We argued that since we were just waiting for the next car to arrive that shouldn't change where we stood on the list. Especially since the dealer had indicated that they had no control over colors and packages arriving and that's why they couldn't give us a date for delivery. I figured that the lists are fairly fluid anyway since someone might reject one car and wait another week for a different package or color. So that means that someone lower on the list might suddenly be moved up. They finally saw things our way and kept our place on the list. Ironically, we ended up buying from another dealer after a 45-day wait. Much beter!

 

As I was shopping arround, I found out that pretty much everything comming was either package 1, 4, or 6. If you wanted a specific color and package, be prepared to wait, many of the dealers would not take an order however without specifying a color and PKG. The dealer I ordered from (Hienz Toyota, Mankato, MN) took my order based on what I would not want (black or white), as I mentioned earlier I was 5 on the waiting list.

Weeellll, as I got home from work tonight, as I'm relaxing watching the evening news, my dealer called, they have a Salsa package 4 on the way for delivery no later than May 31!!!

Selling price is MSR+ tax, license, etc. Now, talk about painfull wait, week and a half yet.

 

We ordered ours on Feb 5th 2005 here in Connecticut.

We waited until April 14th before we just couldn't wait any longer.

We called our salesman and got the same song and dance about allocation, dealer preferal treatment, the necessity to wait 4 to 6 months, being 2nd on the list, etc. etc. It became apparent this dealer couldn't (wouldn't?) tell us anything about his future allocations or when we were going to get a car. We got the feeling he was simply waiting for the dice to be cast and if a car that matched our preferences was somehow delivered to him, he'd give us a call.

Feeling antsy, we called around to other dealers in Connecticut, and found some of them were charging $3,000 to $4,000 ABOVE MSRP! Not good!

So. . .

We called out of our Toyota regional district down to North Carolina to the highest volume sales dealership there. The salesman there found us a car within 3 days. He located the car on the ship enroute to port, traded one of his allocated cars for that one, and it became ours at MSRP.

Lesson learned. . .

1) Find the highest volume dealership that sells the car at or below MSRP

2) If you live in a Toyota region that doesn't get good allocations, try another region.

3) Find an aggressive dealer who is willing to go the extra mile to find a car for you.

4) Make sure your deposit is refundable. I would run from a any dealer who would refuse.

The cars are out there - it just takes some work to find the right match to the right buyer. And in our case, a willingness to drive 14 hours to get one. Call us crazy, but we have the exact car we ordered.