Thanks to all of you who offered advice after my major car accident on St. Patrick's Day. (100% blame was given to the other driver by the police however that doesn't make the accident any less traumatic unfortunately) Since then the insurance company has totalled my '05. That's the sad part. Her untimely demise. But my old car gave her life for me - the airbags saved me. So she was a great car before the accident and during it, and I enjoyed her a lot! However as sad it was, We needed to move on. It's hard to live in LA with only one car between a couple. So my husband and I knew it was time to start looking. It's amazing how much in demand Priuses are! They were hard to get a year ago (in 2005 we lucked out and just walked into a dealer, they had what we wanted, and we negotiated to down to MSRP), and they remain as much so! Anyway, I e-mailed many, many dealers on Friday asking about availability and price, and made calls on Saturday and today. Prices were up to over $5000 MSRP, and some had as long as 4-6 month waits. Many required deposits to be put on waiting lists. Some had the packages but not the color in stock, others had the color but not the package in stock.Happily all our efforts finally paid off. We were looking for a 2006 silver package 7 or 8 in stock. Tonight we drove home a silver package 8, and we got it for MSRP, no markups. So we are a case in point that you can get a Prius in a reasonable amount of time, for a reasonable price. Don't let the dealers make you think otherwise! You just need to invest a little time. Anway, hopefully a sad tale, ends on a more happy note! So now we just need to reapply for the HOV stickers. Keep your fingers crossed for me on that one!
Congrats on your new car!! I am so glad you didn't have to get on a waiting list and were able to get exactly what you wanted. It really would have been adding insult to injury if you would have had to be Prius-less.
Congrats on finding the replacement Prius. Out of curiousity, I hope it's not too personal of a question, but did the insurance cover the entire cost of the new car? Since the Prius has a great resale value I was wondering if that would allow you to get more value after they totalled it.
