Prius Prime Arriving November 3?

I received a phone call from my local San Diego dealer yesterday saying they have 4-5 coming in. He wanted to know if i was interested in any of the colors: 2 white, silver and was not sure of the blue. He was thinking delivery around mid November however he was not sure and would keep me posted.
He also forgot the colors i was interested in and this is the guy i left a deposit with.

 

Color is one thing but what are the chances of having the color and the level of Prime you want?

 

Isn't that the trick getting exactly what you want. I have communicated with a many dealers and so far two have been able to tell me they are getting the colors and trim I am looking for.

 

me too. in fact, i'm so happy with my pip, i might wait for the mid cycle refresh.

 

The dealer I have been in contact with seems to be trying to find out info for me but it has been very slow. Another dealer who I have hd little contact with told me yesterday by email that if I put down $1500 he would get me one and that Primes coming to the Midwest will already be bought by the time they arrive. I like the 1st dealership better but don't want to miss out on a buying opportunity. This will take some thought.

 

I would counsel you to be patient, if your circumstances will allow. The dealerships would love to have deposits on all their incoming vehicles and will manipulate the interested buyers into believing that waiting is a mistake. They inflate interest in the vehicle and depress availability.

These are very early days. I wonder just how much demand there will be for the car in a few months. A person, when they really want something, tends to think others have the same interest and that demand will therefore be high. In my case, as a person who is very anxious to buy a Prime, it is worth waiting. Maybe after the first of the year, I will be able to get a better price and exactly the model, color and interior that I want. I think it is worth taking the chance.

 

Thank you. I needed to hear that.

 

You should also consider the advantages of waiting until next year (i.e. January) to purchase this vehicle since it may allow you to plan out your tax situation so as to get the most benefit from the $4500 rebate. For instance, you could elect to have your withholding reduced so that you have more take-home pay each pay period rather than waiting until 2018 to see all of that money refunded to you. Since the rebate is non-refundable, you could also look at moving income into 2017 (such as withdrawing from an IRA) should your expected 2017 income tax not be enough to take full advantage of the full $4500.

 

I guess it would not be the worse thing to have happen...having to wait until Spring to get a Prime. Avoid all the snow/ice/chemicals put down on the road during Winter months.

 

Missing out on collecting data from from new features, like pre-warming, would be unfortunate.

Those unknowns feed efforts to undermine.

 

Interestingly, I had the opposite reaction. I was thinking of waiting until September or October for year end clearance sales, but with winter coming on I started to rethink that. I want winter tires this winter. But if I buy them for my Prius C I would only get one season worth of use out of them since they are the wrong size for the Prime. If I bought a Prime in early January I could get winter tires along with it and have them for several years to come.

 

Pardon for the venting...

I chatted with two local Chicago dealerships this morning. Both told me, after "looking up the incoming paperwork" that there will be no Primes in the Midwest for another six to eight months! I told each of them that this must be wrong, but they said that it was the truth. One of them said a deposit would reserve one if they ever see a car in real life. The other wouldn't even accept a deposit because their sales manager didn't believe this model would ever be available to them. No Primes would ever be a stock car on either of their lots in all of 2017 - only special advanced orders would be accepted and they could not guarantee a price or month of availability. Wow.

That, besides being a real downer, is an indication that even now, with real cars being delivered to customers, the dealer resistance to this model is huge. I really can't ever envision buying from a Chicago area dealership again with the attitudes they seem to have on their own product.

I will name names. Elmhurst Toyota and Toyota of Elgin. I purchased my 2010 from Elmhurst in 2009 and was the first out the door with one in May. Never had a problem with them and their fantastic service department. Meanwhile, I am ready to buy a Prime immediately if I can ever hook up with one in the Midwest.

 

Two separate dealers in Colorado have told me Primes will first arrive here in late December.

 

unfortunately, toyota is still treating plug ins like the adopted step child. hopefully, that will change as we move on, but all the dealers should have been brought up to speed by now.

 

Crazy way to run a business.

 

Why do you say that? If you go to toyota.com the Prime is the very first car featured in their rotating display. They had quite a large press availability in Ojai judging by the number of different youtube reviews coming out of that launch event. Meanwhile, the car is priced very aggressively.

 

The two dealers I talked with here, including the sales manager, neither had seen a Prime yet, nor had been to any training for the car. Neither had information about them at their dealerships. They had to go online while I was talking to them. One wanted to call the various trim levels one, two and three.

Searching other dealership inventories online, and those that list the Prime in their search functions (most dealers the Prime is a black hole), also list the trim levels one through three. That's some savvy marketing right there, or complete lack of it.

As I search dealers in Ca. they seem to be light years ahead of the Midwest.

 

Can you name them? Because I might give them a call.