A Guy Walks into a Dealership...

Don't walk into a dealership! See the big price paid on PiP thread. Email/Talk with the internet/fleet manager and get price in emails.

Price Paid on PIP? | PriusChat

 

This is coming from someone who used to do fleet sales for over a year.

"The best deal" is a relative term depending on the person. And eventually you'll come to realize that someone somewhere will always get a better deal than you. A dealer may quote a low price but remember to ask for options that are installed on the vehicle. A lot of times it seems low by email only for you to realize that there are other options installed when you show up at the dealership.

Most dealers will come close to matching or beating pricing that you find from other competing dealers. However they will try to gauge the likelihood and seriousness of your potential to buy a car from them. After all, you're shopping for a car and they are shopping for a buyer.

Check the average price for vehicles in your area (http://www.trucar.com), reference the price paid on the PiP spreadsheet. Do your research, buy what financially makes sense to you and you'll be fine.

 

If you can "trade-in" the 2010 Prius toward the PiP you might shave some sales taxes on the deal depending on how VT treats sales taxes on leases.

 

The price paid sheet is linked from the FAQ. See my sig.

 

If you're buying the car?
Don't walk in. Don't trade your G2. Do everything mentioned above including pre-arranging your financing @ a CU. If your G2 is your G2.....sell it privately.
Look at used car prices for Priuses.
Pretty high, aren't they????
Somebody is going to benefit from that. If you lease, or trade a privately owned Prius in at the dealership?
It isn't going to be you!

If you're leasing a car?
Just walk in, throw your wallet on the nearest sales associate's desk, point at a Pip and say:
"I want to lease that one over there. Here's my wallet. Please...only take what you think you need. Oh...and I'm feeling especially generous so please under pay me for my trade!"

If it sounds like I'm not wild about leasing, it's because I'm not.
If you own a business, or you fit veeeeeery specific situations? Yeah.
However (comma!)
For most people leasing is a way to drive more car than they think that they can afford, and then pay to much for the privilege of doing that.

Following is from Clark Howard:

• It's harder to compare prices on a lease, and the financing costs built into a lease are very high.

• Leasing may seem cheaper than buying, but you're mortgaging your future when you lease. After a few years of leasing a vehicle and making payments, you own nothing.

• Manufacturers and dealers like to use upfront fees to create ultra-low monthly payments that mask the actual cost of a lease.

• Most leases allow you to drive an average of 15,000 miles per year. If you exceed the limit, you have to pay a penalty of 8 to 15 cents per mile.

• Before you turn in a leased car, have it detailed inside and out and make any needed repairs. Then find out what company is officially responsible for determining that the car is in acceptable condition.

• A 4 or 5 year lease is a recipe for disaster. Many customers end up married to a vehicle they hate or end up paying severe early termination penalties.

• If you lease for 5 years and your car is totaled in an accident, you could be responsible for a giant gap between the amount the insurance company will pay and the stated residual
in the lease.

 

Re: last point, I believe that's why you have gap insurance?
Re: financing at a CU: generally a good idea, but no CU will give you $4k cash back and 0% apr for 5 years. If your credit score is 700+, you will be getting a better deal through TFS, no doubt about it.

 

Are these actual numbers?
Your total lease cost comes to 7128+2000+16000=25128. That is a really good price. But can you get this price? Is there any dealer offering you this? Keep in mind, someone needs to make money. We haven't had anyone here purchase the car at such a low price, and a purchase is generally cheaper than a lease. Something doesn't add up here. Do you have a firm offer for these numbers?

 

...do the best you can....although VT is one of the original 13 colonies and also one of the PiP 14 rollout states (or is it 15) most of the best prices have come from Boston, NY, NJ, and MD possibly VA.

 

Your forgetting that TFS bakes the $2500 federal tax credit into lowering the lease payments.

 

Oh yeah. Good call. Well, there you go. That's what's bad about the lease. You're leaving 2500 on the table.

 

Even with the federal tax credit going to TFS, the current lease offers are quite attractive. I leased a base with floor mats (33,020) for $1635 out of pocket (this was all NY tax and registration fee with 399 cap cost reduction). I now have 35 remaining payments of 259 per month. The purchase price is 17280 at the end of the lease. This deal included the 4000 rebate plus another 2259 from the "Toyota Loves Nurses" program. The total cost is 1635 + 9065 + 17280 + 1404 tax = 29384.

When push comes to shove, this deal was almost identical to the purchase price at 0% including the federal tax 2500, the only difference is that the buyout (17280 plus tax) is not eligible to be financed at 0%. The total cost to purchase was 29000. The vehicle cost was the same as the lease, 32600. Add NY tax and registration and you get 35500. Subtract 4000 rebate and 2500 federal tax credit and you get 29000. This is only 384 cheaper than my lease.

The Toyota Loves Nurses money was only available on the lease deal. This program included a 2000 rebate plus the 1st lease payment. And of course, you or your spouse must be a nurse...

 

But here's the thing, people are not paying MSRP on the cars when purchasing them. A good price for the NY region is 30,500 before the TFS rebate, which is 2k less than what you're using. So, doing your math, on a purchased vehicle, we have:
$33,245 after taxes & reg (using 9% here)–4k–2.5k=$26,745 total purchase price.
That's already $2500 less than what you paid. AND you got that special deal with the nurses program! If it wasn't for that, the difference would be close to five thousand dollars

Leases ought to be illegal honestly. They are the biggest scam of all the car salesman scams ever known. There's no free lunch. You get tricked into thinking you're getting a good deal because of that really low monthly payment and all logical reasoning goes out the door.

 

You are not giving me enough credit here. A lease is not chicanery, it is simply paying for the depreciation plus interest on the depreciation. You may think that the 32600 price is too high, but this is 500 over invoice, which is a fair price for both the dealer and the consumer. Furthermore, why did you drop the sale price on the cash deal but not the capitalized cost on the lease deal? Both cars need to start at the same sale price in order for this complarison to have any relevance. As it turns out, I actually acquired two PIPs last month, one as leased, and the other purchased for my sister. The numbers I describe are real. Again, you may think the starting point is too high in each, but the math is the math. No smoke and mirrors based on a monthly payment. I just thought having the option of handing the car back after three years without strings was worth $384.

 

The prices don't need to start anywhere. You presented the numbers that you got with your lease. I gave you numbers that are representative of what others on the forum here paid for their purchases. That was point – that those who are purchasing are able to do that for less. I didn't arbitrarily drop the price, I quoted the "street price" that people are getting. If you actually bought a plug-in for your sister for 32k sometime in the past 3 months, than I am very sorry to tell you that you have been had, tremendously.
I bought my plug-in on September 30 for just under $29k in Oregon, which was only offering a $2k discount from TFS. My pre-TFS purchase price was $1500 below invoice. Am I supposed to feel bad about this or something?
Again, to reiterate, people buying a base pip on the east coast today (and in November) are paying roughly $26.5k after the TFS incentive, or a $30.5k purchase price (which is basically the same price I paid). If you're paying more than that – lease or not – you're getting a raw deal.

 

lensovet,

you are a reasonably intelligent guy but don't fall into the trap of thinking that leasing is a scam. it is just another form of financing. negotiating the purchase price is still a major part of the transaction, but suggesting someone may have been "had" because they paid a bit more than the best price paid in North America is a bit rough.

as the OP knows, you negotiate the purchase price first and then work on the financing, whether it is a lease or loan.

sure, dealers are adept at negotiating, but more and more the leasing terms are being standardized by the leasing company, perhaps a result of some of the more recent regulations of consumer banking. I have even heard examples of dealers signing lessors to aggressive lease terms only to have the leasing company make corrections and kick it back, shocking !

 

Sometimes a lease will work out in your favor, there are just many factors at play. I leased a Honda Pilot for 3 years, took it to CarMax at the end of the lease for an appraisal. The appraised amount was $3000 higher than the buy-out price from Honda. Sold the car to CarMax, pocketed the change and used it as a down payment when I bought the PiP.

High residual values, low money factor, and selling price incentives make leases attractive. You don't have to pay the sales tax up front because it's charged on the monthly payments. Gap insurance is also included since the manufacturer still owns the car during a lease.

 

"You may think that the 32600 price is too high, but this is 500 over invoice"
I believe the window sticker lists the base PiP at $32,000 retail plus $760 delivery and around $200-225 for mats. So I think the dealer invoice must be lower than $32,100.
From one of the online car pricing sites, the invoice on a base, including carpeted mats and delivery, with no other options, is $31620, with MSRP of $32985.
I agree with John Hatchett- leasing is just another way of financing. And I'm not arguing that it didn't work out for you in this case. My only question is with regard to the "invoice" your dealer was talking about.
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