PriusChat "Certified Dealer" Program - looking for suggestions

I'd like to be able to get a little off MSRP at Capital Toyota in Salem, OR please!

- Brant

 

They who?!

THEY are making 15,000 PHEVs for the USA in the year 2012.

 

Nobody can order anything who's not on the advanced order list.
If there are ANY of the 15,000 units left available after the smoke clears, they will make cars available thru a regular allocation process BUT that has yet to be determined as to how to spread them around. I also suspect that our corporate guys are smart - and like me, they know there won't need to be a decision made on that because all the cars will be spoken for in the first few hours and there won't be extras TO spread out.

 

all this talk of selling out in minutes is making me nervous. are we supposed to be contacting dealers right now and negotiating prices? meaning, when the time comes to make the online order, do we have to specify a dealer right then and there? i seem to remember the video describing a N-hour window between placing the order and choosing the dealer but having a short amount of time like that is bad for the consumer. dealers know the clock is ticking...

 

If you saw the video, you'd see that you have 96 hours to solidify a deal. Just get in and get yourself a CAR ordered. That's the most important part of the system - setting things up for YOU to get the car dropped SOMEWHERE.

Based on the limited supply of cars and the hassle INVOLVED, AND trust me, it's up there.... and the sheer vagueness of what our
invoices are going to be, I bet most stores are going to be at MSRP. Hard to promise a discount or deal when you have no idea what the car's going to cost you as a store as opposed to YOU as a client who already knows the sticker.

I'm planning to go for volume, hoping it gets me even more Prii and wagons somehow. It's also, as they say, in my DNA to give the best deal and experience to my buyers.

No matter where you are, get into the online system and secure your place. I see in a few places where someone's mentioned "dealers rushing to place their ordfers" and I don't know what you mean by that. Dealerships don't get to place orders. Buyers place their orders, dealerships don't order the cars. We are not permitted.

 

If you saw the video, you'd see that you have 96 hours to solidify a deal. Just get in and get yourself a CAR ordered. That's the most important part of the system - setting things up for YOU to get the car dropped SOMEWHERE.

Based on the limited supply of cars and the hassle INVOLVED, AND trust me, it's up there.... and the sheer vagueness of what our
invoices are going to be, I bet most stores are going to be at MSRP. Hard to promise a discount or deal when you have no idea what the car's going to cost you as a store as opposed to YOU as a client who already knows the sticker.

I'm planning to go for volume, hoping it gets me even more Prii and wagons somehow. It's also, as they say, in my DNA to give the best deal and experience to my buyers.

No matter where you are, get into the online system and secure your place. I see in a few places where someone's mentioned "dealers rushing to place their ordfers" and I don't know what you mean by that. Dealerships don't get to place orders. Buyers place their orders, dealerships don't order the cars. We are not permitted.

 

I know I missed the sign up for the plug-in and the limited quantities will make this Prius chat "Certified Dealer" less import as soon as the set volume numbers go down and they become far and few between dealers.

So please include the regular new 2012 as part of the program.
This will keep the dealers on their toes to stride to stay on the top of the list even after they sell all the assigned plug-ins.

Let's really leverage the forum to it fullest and help all the individuals that missed out early enrollment that are left this coming year with non plug-in's.

my2cents.

 

I feel just terrible for those who didn't get into the window of time to pre-order. Even thought the window was open for many months, it may just not have been on someone's radar till everyone was talking about "how much"... as I think the lower model's worth the $ for sure! I think that's what's started the groundswell. But, if there's no profit to be made and this car is a forced issue, as it seems, they will build all the need to and stop... and perhaps many will switch to the regular Prii or wagons.

 

Is that number set in stone? I'm sure you have the latest info and I trust your info before stuff on the web, but previously they were saying 16000 or 17000, and "we’ll deliver to whatever level the market wants†(Although in retrospect, that last bit was probably not for 2012)

2012 Prius Plug-In Reaches 29,000 Pre-Registrants | PriusChat

 

I would also like to be considered part of the group if there is a 5% discount in the Bay Area. Please add me to the list. This will be my first time purchasing a Prius and I called a couple of dealers within the area. Some dealers told me to put down a $500 deposit and others had no idea of what was going on and never got back to me. The pricing that's depicted on the website cannot be marked up by the dealers, can it? If we choose the model we want, that's what they will charge us, am I wrong? It seems a bit ambiguous and unclear to me as to how this process will work.

 

okay, that's what i really wanted to know. because with the leaf i think it was the dealer who placed the actual order. here it sounds like i'll be placing the order. but i have to say that's a fundamentally broken process where i have to commit to buy something without negotiating a price. although as i alluded to, i suppose there's nothing stopping me from pre-negotiating it. if i understand what you are saying, though, no one is going to be very happy to make deals.

in summary, it seems like the car companies can figure out how to screw up sales of cars on allocation more ways than one!

 

DUPLICATE POST oops

 

No, this system keeps things on the up and up.
My advice: if you speak to someone at dealership level that has to go talk to managers or get things approved :: buzzer sound :: that will slow things down. If you're at a smaller store, these things happen. If you're lucky, you'll find someone like myself who's sitting at the desk confirming all orders as they arrive in my in-box, one by one in order of arrival to the system.

The actions that will possibly delay orders is someone NOT focused on this process while it's happening. Someone who will "do it later" because they think we have all the time in the world. Or, someone who's got to take the order to someone else to get it OK'ed. Look, everyone's got a boss. I do too. But, in my personal case, my boss knows my judgment to be sound and my efforts for the store, the customers, and the product itself is sound. In my case, there is NOTHING between me and your confirmation steps but you... because once I click in and send back and OK with pricing and promise, you have to go back and accept.

For that reason, this system is NOT broken. It leaves the entire process in your hands. If anyone's whining about process, then they cannot understand the reason for it, or the brilliance of it. It seems to be designed to keep less than savory orders from eating up the cars that folks like you and me wish to buy.

 

Dianne, you're double-posting like crazy

 

Its Priuschat, its so slow you end up clicking more than once, and it double posts.

 

Like crazy? I only did it once!

 

:: koff ::

 

Evan is right.

BUT: you can go in and modify car and dealer in that 96 hours. I wouldn't chance it, but you can do it. I'd cut the deal prior to ordering lines opening up.

I gotta say, in regards to the small volume of those preorder cars vs. the cars available after the system runs out of pre-order units... I'd jump on that order line immediately if you want a car in the early part of the year and at a good deal.

After the pre-orders are settled, it's going to be like the wild wild west out there for cars.