2016 Prius - let's hear from buyers

I'm sure this is true, but I don't think it means you have to drive cross-country for the configuration of your dreams (provided it's possible with Toyota's zany option packaging). I wanted a 3 w/ATP in red w/beige interior. While that was nowhere in our state, when the dealer checked, he found one going to an Arizona dealer still at the port in CA and swapped for it. As long as you're willing to wait, that sort of transaction should be possible anywhere.

 

I went back to the dealership today and pointed this out to them. The more I looked the more options I found, just with some searching. They're gonna call me in the morning and tell me what the outlook is for getting a specific order in. Hopefully it won't be too long! I mean, I'm actually kind of okay with flying out to Charlotte and driving the car back here. I have family in the Carolinas so I could stop by and say hi at least. That or wherever in the country would be fun to do that with, though.

Really glad I posted here; really helped me with my options.

 

Had my first fill today of 9.91 gallons after 541 miles with the calculated estimated showing 54.1 MPG. This seems spot on, since the pump likely doesn't allow topping off of the last .09 gallons by default. The fuel gauge bar was completely empty, but my guess is that there were at least a couple of gallons left in the reserve, given the advertised capacity.

 

Hi guys, G4 japanese version seems to have rear windows more dark than all the pics that come from US version. I think it gives a better look on G4 with black plastic pillar. Nobody likes the dark rear windows look in US or you can't select the option in US?

 

You can just have your windows tinted, depending on your local laws. Laws in the US can be a bit odd and vary by state to state.

 

Got it. But pretty dumb, if you think about it. To get the car I want I had to order it. The website ought to have a "special order" flag rather than simply prevent you from configuring what you want. It is going to take 12 weeks but I'll get what I want.

We did put in the order and the process has started. The cars are in short supply so negotiation is simply not possible. I went through CostCo and they said they would give us a special price, but the dealer would not play ball. I also have AMEX and the dealers won't honor that either. I did get a $500 incentive because I already own a Prius, but that was the end of it. You can't negotiate if the other guys hold all the cards. Oh well.

This morning I got a call from a dealer who wanted to follow up - the one who would not give me the promised Costco deal and wasted my drive time before he told me that. Complete morons were trying to sell me some other kind of car to get my business. Imagine ... I want so badly to give them the business that I'll buy whatever they are trying to dump. Idiots.

With the excellent guidance on this site I refused the extended warranty (they don't honor it in practice anyway), and lots of add-ons that really push the price up. I held my ground on undercoating ("it makes the car quieter" .... yeah, but the sales pitch is that it is ALREADY quieter!) but my wife really wanted the interior treatments for the upholstery, and she added on window treatments and a film for the front. I told her that I thought that Rain-X did the same as the window treatment but hey, it's her car. LOL. I guess the film on the hood (clear bra?) is a good idea as we have a lot of pits in the paint on the old one. She acknowledged that she only noticed the paint damage a couple of months ago so that suggests that we will be ready for a new car before she sees any damage anyway.

Altogether, this is possibly the worst car buying experience in my life of buying cars. If they had set out to completely piss off the car purchaser they could not have come up with better than what they are doing now. If here were ANY reasonable alternative to the Prius, I'd never even glance at a Toyota again. Maybe in a decade, when we get the next car, there will be something better than the Prius. Maybe the Tesla will be priced for us peons. Or maybe I'll still have to buy the best car from the worst company once more.

I'll post the prices and configuration when we get the car.

 

Where did you buy it from? I see you are in Maryland, I bought mine from Jim Coleman and they were willing to negotiate with me.

 

I really don't think that Toyota is the worst company - they just have consistently awful dealers when it comes to the car-buying experience (it's a more mixed bag when it comes to service), especially where there is no local competition (e.g., my market, where I have two dealers in a 150 mi. radius). Toyota's ability to deal with this is very limited in the U.S., where it confronts the iron ring of dealer franchise laws established and maintained by corrupt politicians in nearly every state. In their domestic market, Toyota and the other JDM manufacturers run their own "stores" and the experience is radically different.

There's a reason that Tesla steadfastly refuses to play this game, and only sells in states where they can do so without going through such dubious "partners". For those interested, here's the official line from NADA chairman Bill Fox in an interview last October, a bizarre series of half-truths and self-contradictions that collapse into incoherence. The comments section is instructive - readers are having none of it:

Tesla Direct Sales are 'An Inconvenience:' NADA Chairman » AutoGuide.com News

 

Thanks. It is now ours, but yet to be delivered. Paid for and sitting at the dealer's lot until they can get it down to us. We have yet to agree on leather colors. This may be the first car I don't have to improve. The 2008, my wife wanted, but only if I could improve the handling, which I did (see my suspension upgrades thread from ages ago). Before that, I had to stiffen up her 1991 Ford Escort Wagon. The 2016 seems to not need anythign to be acceptable in the handling department.

I will be adding sound deadening, however. The road noise and wind noise is still a bit much. RAmat will work wonders in the door and only add about 10-15 pounds.

Jonathan

 

It sounds like you ran into a crappy dealer who is unwilling to try to navigate Toyota's ordering system, such as it exists. Or didn't want to adequately explain how it really works and instead just wanted to push what was on the lot to make their numbers for the month.

The problem with having a special order button on the website is that there is no way to effectively make sure that the car ordered by a particular customer actually is bought by the customer. It's not like someone ordering a $500 cell phone where it can be sold easily to someone else if the original customer passes on it. We're talking about a $30K car that took hours and hours to build by dozens of people. A significant expenditure of resources that you want to plan and control as best as possible.

There are car companies out there that do have a real custom ordering system. Mini is one such manufacturer. When we bought my wife's Countryman. We had gone into the dealership with the basic configuration that she wanted, sat down with a salesperson to discuss it and tweak a few things, and put down a deposit to secure the car. 3 months later my wife had the car she wanted. I suspect that one reason Mini is able to do it is because they are a smaller marquee than Toyota and therefore might have better flexibility in their production system.

You should keep in mind that some options like window tinting is not done at the factory. That's going to totally be a dealer installed option. Other typical addons like a bumper appliqué, fabric protection, undercoating, etc, can come from the factory, but might actually be a dealer addon that costs more than what the factory/port charges. The OEM hitch on a Highlander normally costs $699 as a factory option. But in order to get the exact Highlander we wanted, we had to have the hitch added on by the dealer before we bought the car. If we had been willing to wait 3 months for the exact car to be built by the factory using one of the dealer's cuztomization slots (which is really what the special order process is), we could've saved the extra $300 it cost us to get them to put the hitch on. However, we needed the car by a certain date and they had a car that was an almost exact match for what we wanted. Given that the car was already north of $50K, an extra $300 was a small price to pay get what we wanted/needed.

Good luck with getting the exact car that you want. Given the amount of money you are going to spend on a new car, you should get exactly what you want.

 

dealers are dealers. no manufacturer stands out, good or bad.

 

Tesla. Because they have no dealers.

 

Would be happy to help anyone out that is looking for flexibility on pricing of the Prius. We expect to continue to have a pretty large inventory moving into the spring. Also would be happy to help if anyone has questions on configurations and what we are expecting in this region of the country(central atlantic) etc. Thanks for the shout out btw @Zojja!
-Pat Coleman
Jim Coleman Toyota

 

I would like to see a night time pic of the back end with the taillights on please

 

Available Full-Speed Dynamic Radar Cruise Control | Prius | Toyota Toyota USA

TOYOTA PRIUS 2015 New model Test Drive

 

saw one on the highway the other night, best looking tail lights on the road.

 

Not exactly night but dusk i guess.

 

Is it me, or is it just plain creepy for a couple of nicely dressed yuppies to be grinning like mannequins while driving through an urban construction zone at night?

 

oh ya, starship enterprise.

 

Ooo I saw a video of the parking assist, I need to try that although I think parallel parking should be a skill we should maintain? Maybe?

Has anyone noticed their lights on during the day? I was driving today and saw the reflection of my front lights which was strange considering my lights are set to auto. Is that normal? It wasn't even cloudy.