WWPCD? packages/prices for our second Prius

What would Prius Chatters Do?

Debated putting this in prices/dealers, but thought I might get more general thoughts and feedback here beyond just prices.

We have pretty much decided to take the plunge and buy our second family Prius. We drove a TCH the other day for the first time, expecting to really like the extra passenger room, and were sort of surprised to find we really prefer our Prius. It seemed from what we've been seeing like its a pretty good time to buy, so we've been shopping around and narrowed down it down to a few front runners. We are somewhat hindered by an undesireable trade ('99 Land Rover Discovery, black, 100k miles, fair cond). We did get a pretty generous $1700 offer for it from Carmax though. We are a family of 4 with a 7 month old, and a 3 year old both in gigantic Britax car seats. We've really liked the leather in our '05, cloth would have been pretty sorry looking by now. This car will be my wifes, and the primary family hauler for trips etc.

Below are the deals we are considering (roughly in order of our current preference), but I'm very curious to see what my fellow PCers think.

1. Certified Preowned (CPO) 2006, <24k miles, pkg 6 (leather, NAV, BT, VSC, JBL, backup, SKS, side aribags, HID, homelink) $18,988, or $20,600 out the door (OTD) with trade. ~$19,800 OTD if we use CarMax for trade.

2. CPO 2008, 10k miles, pkg 4 (BT, JBL, VSC, backup, SKS, side airbags, HID, homelink) $21,100 OTD with trade.

3. CPO 2008, 4k miles, pkg 2 (6 disk, VSC, SKS, backup, side airbags) $20,800 OTD with trade (would be a 300 mile drive each way, and they haven't actually seen the trade yet other than a few pictures and a description)

4. New 2009 pkg 2, best offer we've gotten so far is $23,100 OTD with trade. Haven't gone back to see what it would be going the carmax route. Probably missed our chance for a best possible deal on 12/31. Generally not feeling like new is worth it compared to the CPOs at this point.

Our current thinking runs roughly thus: The main disadvantage to the 2006 is it only has 9 months left on the full warranty, then drivetrain warranty to 7/100. The '08 CPOs have more like 2-2.5 years of full warranty left. However neither of the '08s have leather, which is really the only feature we care much about. Dealer leather runs about $1400, and the factory full extended warranty through PC is $960. So we can somewhat equalize the differences by adding $1400 to the '08s, and $960 to the '06. That puts us at ~$20,700 for the '06 pkg6, $22,500 for the '08 pkg4, and $22,200 for the '08 pkg2. To us for $1500-2000 less the '06 pkg 6 with its extra goodies seems like a better deal. The differnece is more like $2500-3000 if we don't worry about the waranty, which based on our Prius experience so far we're not too worried about. We're not too concerned about the resale difference, as we plan to keep our Priuses for quite a while.

What do you all think?

Rob

 

Thats about what I expected too. According to Edmunds:

2009 Prius Pkg #2
MSRP: $24,670
Inv: $22,762
Fact Rebate: $750
Inv - Rebate: $22,162
VLT/Reg: ~$428
Sales Tax: ~$1773
OTD Cost For Inv-Rebate: $24,363 (plus any misc fees)
With $1700 from Carmax, finance ttl: $22663

Best offer I got was $23,182 OTD with trade, so they were valuing the trade at ~$1100 plus the sales tax benefit. Most places would only give me $800 for the trade.

I sent an initial request (bcc'd) to basically every dealer in Phoenix, Flagstaff, Prescott, Tucson, the CA desert and Vegas I've gone through a second round with all the dealers who replied, resulting in the deals mentioned. I haven't pushed any harder yet to see who would do the best deal on the new '09 as I've been feeling like the CPOs are a better deal at the moment, but thats basically the question here.

Rob

 

Yeah, we've considered a lot of those options. I like the looks of the Altima alot, and we really thought we'd like the TCH more than we did. I think it just made us realize how much we really like our Prius. In our opinion the extra power and wider body were just not worth the loss of mileage and the utility of the hatchback.

I really like the looks of the '10, but realistically its probably not in our price range at the current time. We really didn't want to be financing more than $20k, with only putting our trade down (no cash). With the TCH/NAH at least we had the option of CPO, but decided to focus on a second Prius. We were working a pretty good deal for an '07 CPO TCH w/ 36k miles, moon roof, for ~$15,500 after trade, maybe <$18,000 OTD before we switched tracks.
Probably around 2012-13 we'll be looking at a Plugin Prius to replace the '05.

Its tempting to wait and see if prices on used Priuses fall more after the '10s come out, but with the depression currently caused by the huge inventory buildup, poor economy, low gas prices, its hard to imagine the deals will be much better than they are now. If the economy improves, or gas goes back up, or Toyota is conservative with how many '10s they build initially causing more shortages used prices could easily rebound. Its really a crap shoot at this point, and I'm pretty tempted to take the deal I can get today over the one I might get tomorrow.

Rob

 

I agree in principle on both fronts. We probably wouldn't actually buy the full extended warranty, unless the selling dealership gave us a big discount to sweeten the deal. I like the CPO more for the fact that a dealer has gone through the car and will stand behind it than for the warranty. I wouldn't pay much extra for that though. You generally sound much more financially organized than we are

As far as the land rover, I wish it were true. Its condition is fair at best, and their just isn't much demand for black, 13mpg, high maintenance, high mileage SUVs in Phoenix these days KBB trade in for fair condition is $2,000. From the quotes we've gotten, even Priuses are selling CPO for near KBB trade-in (below in one case), so I think KBB is still a bit optimistic and trending downward. Edmunds even more so. If I had time I figure I could fix a bunch of the warts up for ~$500 and maybe get $2500-$3k. From the threads I've seen on the LR forums, even that might be optimistic. Again, at this time I feel safer taking the deal I know I can get over the possibility of a better deal tomorrow. Its still killing me though. With most dealers only offering $800, and afraid they are going to loose money on it at that price (and showing auction sales to back up that fear) $1700 seemed like a lucky break. I'm pretty torn, but probably heading down to Car Max in the morning. Unless I can interest you in a very nice gently used Land Rover

Rob

 

In an attempt to streamline the question, all other things being equal if you were Prius shopping today would you buy:

a) 2006 CPO Prius, Package 6, 24k miles for $19,800 OTD
b) 2008 CPO Prius, Package 2, 4k miles, for $20,800 OTD
c) 2008 CPO Prius, Package 4, 10k miles for $21,100 OTD
d) 2009 New Prius, Package 2, 0 miles for $22,700 OTD

All OTD prices include either our trade, or the $1700 from carmax, whichever is cheaper.

Thanks for your thoughts!

Rob

 

Thanks for all the feedback, we ended up getting the '08 pkg 4 w/ 10k miles. Base price was $20800, sales tax ~$1505, Reg $469, Doc $369, so about $23,143 OTD. They gave us $1500 for the trade, so $21,643 OTD with trade. Our best offer on a new '09 pkg 2 was $24,400 OTD w/ trade, so we feel like we did ok. Maybe not the best deal ever, but we're very happy with the car

Rob