Any experiences with MD dealers?

I believe the warranty offered by PriusChat IS the genuine Toyota warranty...

 

Yeah...no reason to spend more for the same warranty...just buy it from here.

 

I had a fairly seamless experience at Koon's Easton MD thanks to Stefcat. She was willing to stay at the dealership longer than she needed to get my car sorted out, though I didn't take her up on that offer. I really appreciate her posts on Sunroof availability. The inventory data on dealer websites is often outdated or wrong, and PriusChat ends up having the most useful information!

Like fred, I was pleasantly surprised to be able to leave with hard plates.

 

Though I live in Maryland, I purchased my Prius in Virginia and was able to keep my Maryland plates. The dealer, Lustine Toyota, managed the process for me of moving the plates from my old car to the Prius. The registration and sticker for the license plate arrived in the mail from the dealer about 10 days before the temporary plates expired. I took the old plates cleaned them with Soft Scrub, stuck the '11' sticker on the rear plates, and put them on the Prius. It was a very easy process.

 

I also tried to buy from Jim Coleman. They are only located a few miles from me, so I was hoping I could give them my business. I found their sales manager arrogant and passed on their pre-order offer of $400 over MSRP. Hopefully, I will have better luck if I take it there for service.

Congratulations on your purchase!

 

I took our Prius to Jim Coleman once for service and that was enough. You can search for my experience there with a salesman, although we were contacted by someone in the Coleman family apologizing for my experience the experience happened nonetheless and it sounds like its happened to some others too.

I take ours to an independent Lexus master tech who is also a Hybrid master tech who owns his own shop in Rockville. If you want his info PM me, he's very good and he services the Lexus and the Prius for me. For dealer service I have a very good service adjuster at Fitzgerald I can refer you to as well...

 

We bought our Prius II at Darcars in Silver Spring. MSRP - no negotiation except they threw in floor mats when pressed. While the deal, or lack thereof, was expected due to the popularity of the car, I have mixed reviews on the way the dealership treated us. The salesmen were friendly and personable. But, the paperwork process was exceedingly long (about 3 hours) even after we'd visited twice before and were not financing nor trading our old cars. There was also a great deal of pressure, on 2 different visits, to purchase the maintenance plan and extended warranty. Even though my wife and I presented a united front it still took considerable convincing that we really were not going to buy them. These and a couple of other issues have been raised with the dealership. I went to this dealer on a friend's recommendation and upon hearing of our experiences he too was disappointed. On the positive side: we did not have to wait long for a car after placing a deposit and the follow-up since purchase has been good.

 

Attempted to get the reverse beep and seat belt beep turned off with no luck:

Fitzgerald: No response

Darcars: $65 quote over the phone

Koon's Tysons: No quote over phone or email, Came in for a scheduled appointment and was quoted $65 at the service center. However there were no techs available. Manager said they may be able to do it for $20, but I would have to come back next week.

Koon's Easton (original dealer): $65 quote over the phone


Although i'm a bit upset over the exorbitant prices, Toyota is the one making it difficult for the customer to customize these options.

I wonder what Toyota was thinking when they added the in-car reverse beep... since its in the car, it does not warn pedestrians, and makes it difficult for the driver to hear anything else.

 

Koon's Easton disabled the backup beep for me before I picked up the car - no charge. I worked with Stephanie there and had a great experience - even Beth-the-paperwork-lady was helpful in getting my Massachusetts registration complete with no problems.

 

I purchased from Ray Alvarez from DarCars and couldn't recommend anyone higher. I don't think the the paperwork process took more than 30 minutes (max). I dealt w/ Ray on the phone until the car came in, and I met him in-person the first time I went there--when I got the car. Follow-up and responding to questions has been perfect.

Now, I hate the salespeople jumping all over you before you get out of your car door, but on the other-hand they have 50 times the foot traffic as any other dealer I visited and thus a much higher allocation. When I wanted a model 4 w/ sunroof in blue, Ray got the car for me in within two to three weeks. Has anyone else on PC gotten a model 4 w/ sunroof in blue in two to three weeks in this region without ever going to the dealership?

 

You guys do know that the back-up beep is there for a reason don't you? People do not hear the car coming at them because it is so quiet. I think the lives of the little kids in my neighborhood going to the school bus in the morning outweighs an annoying beep. Just my (what I am sure will be an unpopular one) opinion.

 

I tried to buy my car from Russell (from Sarah) but there were too many games. (I bought my other Prius from them, and they are located 3 minutes from my office, so I was very motivated to try to get a deal with them, and they totally blew it on all levels.) First, they were marking the cars up at $2K above MSRP. Then, when they agreed to do MSRP after showing the manager that other local dealers were selling at MSRP (or a few hundred bucks off) I found that they were excluding the shipping costs from their MSRP on their Internet price. But the worst offense, in my opinion, was adding on ~$1500 of crappy add-ons to almost all of their Prii, like the remote starter, car alarms, appearance packages, etc., since they have high profit margins. I was very, very disappointed.

 

What are you talking about? The reverse beep is only heard INSIDE the car.

 

Not in 2005 or 2010. Kids have heeded to that sound when backing out of my driveway a number of times. I guess they could have heard from inside the especially since my sunroof is almost always open. Not sure about the 2005 though.