Adaptive Cruise Control and Lane Keeping Assist Minimum Speeds?

Actually, with Toyota in the USA you cannot special order. Nor can the dealers. Toyota sends what it feels like. Dealers get advance notice of what's coming and can trade among themselves if they want.

 

after initial 4-6 months, you should be able to special order the car and wait for 3 months for it.

I think problem is that people can back out if it in USA and get full deposit back (cant in europe), and hence dealer might end up with very specific vehicle on their stock that they cant sell.

 

This wasn't the case with the Gen II Prius. With those the dealer could only select from what Toyota shipped. This may change for the Gen III, but we were not told that by Toyota.

Tom

 

I see that you live in Europe. I believe in Europe you order your car and pay a non-refundable deposit.

In the U.S. that's never been the case with Toyota. Here, you can request your preferred options package, and the better dealers will try to get it for you by allocation trading. But there are only certain options packages and you cannot request a combination of options other than the set packages. And if a popular package is in high demand, you may find you cannot get it at all without waiting a very long time or traveling to a distant dealership.

 

it is an policy then, probably due to the refund policy. I am pretty sure that dealers themselves can order specific vehicles, but again big issue is what happens if customer refuses the car (which happens quite often in USA as people are used to it.).

 

No, they can't do it. Dealers in the U.S. have no ability to order a specific Prius. Toyota makes an assortment of Prius, puts them on a ship, and then notifies the dealers of the shipment. The dealers then get to pick from the contents of the shipment, within the bounds of some sort of allocation system.

There simply is no mechanism by which a dealer can special order a Prius. This may change with the new model, but I haven't heard anything about it.

Tom

 

What Tom says is correct. In the U.S. dealers cannot order specific options combinations or packages. The best the dealer can do is, once he has his allocation list from Toyota, he can contact other dealers and negotiate an allocation exchange to try to get a car his customer wants in exchange for a car he does not have a customer for.

 

spwolf,

Blind Spot Monitoring System (BSM) can be easily turned off if it annoys you.
IMO, it is not distracting. How would small amber LEDs in your side mirrors distract you? Keep your eyes on the road, and you can barely see them.
It is very valueable during rainy nights when your vision of surroundings is poor.
Radar is less affected by rains than laser or ultra-sound.

I have BSM on my Mazda CX9.
It is the best $200 (MSRP! In fact, it is more like $150 since I bought my CX9 below invoice) I ever spent on any options of vehicles I purchased.
Trust me, it will becomes very popular eventually.
Passengers who ever sat in my CX9 all loved it.

 

It's even worse than that, since the dealer can only trade within their particular wholesale distribution region, with each wholesale region making independent decisions about which packages they'll bring in, and how much they'll muck things up with forced add-ons at the wholesale level. This is before it even gets to the dealer, who will also try to muck things up with worthless addons. This all seems to relate to an antiquated distribution and inventory model.

 

i doubt that would change for the vehicle, it is policy by toyota.

it is kind of weird that you can order lexus from factory then.