Purchasing Questions from Prospective Buyer

1) I got my car one month ago with a "Promise Price" through Edmunds of $27,827 (not including sales tax or lic) in California. Destination charge was included in that price. What I figured was to find a dealer that has exactly the car I want (color, specs, etc) already on their lot, as opposed to one that would custom order it from Japan.

2) Good point

3) Some people have "home made" lock arrangements with a wire through the wheel.

4) Standard, for my preferences the Advanced wasn't worth that extra cash.

 

1. Edmunds has a tool that will tell you what the average purchase price is. Anything less than that would be considered "good". Is the $300 over dealer invoice before or after the $1k manufacturer rebate?

2. With gasoline prices low, now is an excellent time to buy a USED Prius. The number of potential buyers you are competing with is drastically reduced. The value of a used Prius can even go up when fuel prices return to normal levels. Toyota must offer incentives on the current model because the Gen IV is around the corner. If Toyota offers further discounts, it will be primarily for this reason and less to do with low fuel prices.

3. I would think theft of the charger would be highly probable in any major metro area. I wouldn't consider a PiP unless it was garaged, or I had some method to alert me of when someone was tampering with the charger.

4. Most Prii sold do not include the Advanced package. The decision should be based on your desires in a vehicle.

5. If cars are really your interest, and you require the peace of mind that buying new offers, then maybe the stealership is the way to go. Otherwise, I'd get something cheaper and spend the money saved on things that really are my passion.

 

hard to say what a good price is in new york. best you can do is shop around for the best price you can find. i like to look through dealer inventory, then email for a price. with $2. gas, and winter, it probably won't get too much better, but who can predict the future?

i would say most buy the base because of price, but i's personal preference. the advanced does have some nice options, and when i bought, it was a $10,000. difference.

there are many ways described in threads here to lock your cable and yes, they do get stolen from time to time because the cheapest you can find are still $3-400.

all the best, you're gonna love ev!

 

Go with the standard. I don't know a good "new" price, because I got mine as a 1-year-old with low miles/used.

 

2015 PiP has been hard to get outside California (CA).
So you may want to consider 2013 2014 new PiPs which also seem to be available in limited supply.

Seems like around last July-2014 Toyota reduced PiP availability. That corresponded with California HOV green stickers being sold out. Then California added more green HOV stickers, so at moment PiP are selling mainly in CA. The HOV stickers are supposed to run out in a couple months, which might open up availability.

With the shortage of PiPs I don't know if there is much price dropping right now. We get 2015-Jan sales figures soon that will give us more data. That monthly data always gets lively discussion here and other web sties.

 

just to be clear: we took advantage of this offer. It is $1000 cash back OR 0% APR, not both

 

4) I went with the Advanced for one primary reason: Dynamic Cruise Control and additional safety features of a pre-collision warning system. Once you have had a vehicle with DRCC, you'll never want to buy a vehicle without it. Granted, I drive a lot of freeway miles in variable traffic, but it (almost) makes it bearable.

 

i would like to have had leather and power seat.

 

You have the Costco price. How does it compare to the TrueCar price? Do the dealers have the car you are looking for?

You can always try to haggle down from the program price. You'll know you reached bottom when the dealer tells says "if you can buy it for that elsewhere, do it."

You can't order a car. Regions order from Toyota then allocate to their dealers. If you can't find what you want in your Region then you'll have to look in states served by different Regions.

The 4th Gen PiP is coming after the 4th Gen Liftback. Is it worth the wait? Nobody knows. Right now gas is cheap & the weather is crappy so that is to your advantage. There isn't much inventory so you may not find exactly what you want.

The best time to buy a car is when you find what you want at a fair price.

 

If toyota really wants/needs to get the PiPs moving off the lots again, they may bust out the big incentive we got back in April 2013 of $4650 cash back AND %0 financing. My wife was going to get the model she wanted not the one they had on hand this time. I can report that she is still very happy with her seaglass pearl Advanced PiP. I think toyota will increase the PiP incentive before Gen IV PiP comes out, but it is so hard to predict how toyota is managing PiP inventory and what they want to do with their red headed stepchild that they only sell in CARB states.

My best tip is to call your closest/favorite dealer and ask to be put through to the Internet sales dept. They don't advertise this department, but when I got connected with them I had the best car buying experience ever. They found the color and trim she wanted some 100 miles away, sold the car at invoice plus $100 to have somebody drive it to our local dealer. All done in 4 days to make the incentive deadline.