It seemed to me that the Prius was advertised as certified but it needed a bunch of work that the dealer is "willing to do once the find a buyer". They said that this is normal....I have bought a bunch of used/preowned/CPO cars and I have always found my experience being quite the opposite. My logic says that the dealer wants to put their figurative best foot forward and try to present the car in the best light possible....rather than showing it in such terrible condition and then offering to do work to it. If they were going to fix the bumper and do a complete interior detail anyway why wouldn't they do it prior to showing the car at all?
When I got my CPO Prius, they changed most of the fluids (transaxle, coolant and engine), new front brake discs and pads during the pre-cert inspection. The dealer bill was just about $700. It was very clean. I have been to the Middle Island dealer in June, but they didn't show me that car. May be because we were "just looking".
It's rare, but sometimes you really can find a good deal when the dealer simply needs to move inventory. Set up an AutoTrader alert so you don't miss a great deal when it happens. Two months ago I found a CPO (Certified Pre-Owned) 2010 Prius IV with 55k miles, tech, heated perforated light gray leather, navigation, backup cam, illuminated door sills, listed for $17,900 (in SoCal). I got the dealer to lower it to $17,600 due to the limo tint previously installed that was practically opaque. Perhaps this is why it was still on the lot. I argued that it will cost me to remove it, even though I was later able to remove it myself. The rest of the car was nearly pristine. I did replace the tires within a week though. The dealer managed to install brand new tires on it, but they were the cheapest garbage on the market (something like $35 list each); the ride was terrible, wandering and noisy. I sold the 4 nearly-new tires for $120 at a local used tire shop and installed Defenders from Costco (for about $300 net).
i bought a 1 owner lease returned cpo 2010 prius v with adv. tech package last week from the toyota dealer with only 29k miles for around $19k. i think it was a pretty good deal. the online site did not say that it was a prius v and the salesman didn't know any better. i think the dealer doesn't care what options the car has and it doesn't make a difference on the price of the car. i personally like buying cars that are fully loaded instead of base models.
That is the exact deal I am looking for.....all that I am able to find is garbage and I have never had trouble finding a fully loaded car before. I have always been able to find a fully loaded car not labelled as such on the internet, then take advantage of the salesman lack of knowledge on that particular car. Ex: my current 2007 Prius(package 6) that was labelled as a 2.
Good grief, those salespeople know exactly what they are selling... and they will sell at what the market can bear.
That is quite possible in your experience. Many times I have viewed cars online and determined that package/options by the pictures and actually went to view the car in person and the salesperson was surprised to see leather, nav, bluetooth, sunroof etc