Stupid Waiting List

I live about 10 minutes away from Southbay Toyota (CA) so that was the first place I went when I was looking for my Prius. They offered to put me on a waiting list for ~1 month for a $500 deposit, and said the price would be MSRP + a $500 "market demand premium." Instead, I looked up all the local Toyota dealers (you can get a list on the Toyota website) and called around until I found the exact color & package I wanted (silver 06 pkg 8) in stock at Thousand Oaks Toyota. We negotiated MSRP over the phone (they started at $2k over) and I went to pick it up the same day. It takes some time, but if you live in the LA area and are willing to drive an hour or so to get the car, I highly recommend calling around to different dealers.

 

Admittedly, I am not a patient person when stuck in a long line. If I find myself gridlocked in freeway traffic, I'll get off at the next exit and will explore travel on the local roads instead. (Should be much easier now with Navig.) So when I found myself in a Toyota dealer queue from hell (aka soviet breadline) I jumped out and started to explore options.

We are in WA state. At times it seemed like all the good cars were in CA. and they getting better option choices as well. So I started looking around. Perhaps you could try watching craigslist listings for Priuses in the state or at least region. There are some good postings there when the dealer is having a slow day. We went from a 2-4 month list to 1 day by searching craigslist in other nearby regions and cities.

 

When I did my initial research in fall '05 for an '06 I asked each dealer how many perople they had waiting for an '06 and what their historical monthly allocation of vehicles had been. I used this information to project a likely delivery date and compared it with what the dealer told me. One expects to get the vehicle a little earlier, because some people cancel. I chose a dealer that had the best waiting list/allocation ratio. As it happened my vehicle was a month early at least, because (I think) the dealer's allocation increased; getting it tomorrow!

I know where a pkg 3 might be on the lot in New Mexico (silver metallic) at MSRP if you are interested in travelling (PM me).

Do you have a deposit problem? You should get it back no questons asked if they can't meet the promised date with the exact specifications you ordered. I don't know the legaities of recovering a deposit otherwise: I'd like to know although NM might be different.

C

 

I walked into Thousand Oaks Toyota and they had 3 on the lot, all with $3k mark-ups... drove off an hour later at MSRP. Salesman Nirmal was amazing to deal with... I was really put off by my dealings with the majority of Toyota dealers I visited, this one was decent.

 

Hi all,

I ordered a 2006 Prius at the Fremont Toyota dealership, one of the biggest in northern California back near the end of December. At the time they said it would come in at the end of January then the middle of February. I called them up again today to find out the status and they said that Toyota has cut the number of Prii they are shipping by half when they announced the Camry. The dealership said that they still have people from November who are waiting. They said I may have to wait another month or two . They claim all the dealerships in the area have the same problem. They said they can't understand why Toyota would cut production of the Prius when the dealers all have long waiting lists. The dealer sounded as frustrated as I am.

In my case, I ordered Seaside Pearl with option package #7. Option package 7 seems to be the most popular around here and Toyota seems to ship a lot more silver than any other color. I don't want silver myself since I think that it's too common a color for cars today.

-Aaron

 

I called my credit union which offers car connection mid Dec 05 and said I'd like to get a Pirus any color but white. He said there would be a wait but since I really wanted it in 06 that was fine with me. He called me Jan 21st and said it was in did I want to pick it up? But of course went right down and drove it home an hour later. Got the Driftwood Pearl with all the mats not sure what package it is I didn't want the navigation since I would not need it. Now waiting for the stickers. I didn't put a deposit down, and I didn't pay extra. I love the car. My friend had the same experience we both picked up our cars the same day but she used a dealer in Tracy.
Mine was in San Jose.

 

Up until this new version the demand was much much higher for the Pckg #6 than all the other packages combined. I think the Price point of ~ $26000 was just about right. Notice the new Package #6 is just above $26000. BTW this is also where I think the new 'LE TCH' will live.

The $28-30000 range starts to filter out buyers.

 

:blink: If everything else fails, try ebay! There is almost always several dealers thru out the nation that sells on ebay for msrp or less. I have two friends who bought 06 Prius on ebay, flew to the dealerships and drove them back. Both below msrp and the cars that they wanted. Good luck. B)

 

We got our Prius off the lot from Elk Grove Toyota near Sacramento. We were just "looking", not expecting to see a Prius, but we ended up driving home in one . I was there this morning to pick up a cargo net and I saw two, a red pkg #6 and a silver #7. They may have had more.. their # is 916-405-8000.