How long does a factory order take?

take a look at wellesley. since the don't seem to carry rwd anymore, they are probably waiting for awd

 

They are thinking that customers in your area of the country want AWD.

 

and they would be wrong

 

They certainly could, but it's their money they have tied up in their vehicles, so they get to make the decisions. My bet is that the AWD will be good sellers in areas of the country with snow. Our dealer has mostly AWD on the lot.

I wouldn't buy the AWD model, becase for less money I can buy a set of take-off wheels and snow tires and run those in the winter. Better all-around traction than AWD, less money, less weight and packaging compromises. But, if potential buyers come on the lot and have a choice of AWD for $1,000 to $1,500 difference (depending on trim level), there will be a high take rate in snow country.

 

a ton of 2 wheel drive cars get sold around here, but most of the sun's are probably 4, idk

 

A ton of FWD cars get sold everywhere.

 

exactly

 

But a lot of AWD vehicles are sold as well. The buyers will choose, and the dealer will adapt inventory to the local market demand. Dealers are interested in selling cars, and this is most successful when they stock the cars their customers want. With a new model like the AWD Prius, they guess at what the market will be. I would bet that AWD will be a popular choice in snow country.

 

maybe, we'll see. but to have zero fwd makes no sense at all, except that prius is just about dead in the water

 

Maybe they sold them?

 

and there aren't anymore

 

Looking at Boston inventory for Toyota dealers, there are FWD available. Just the first three I checked have 19 total Prius, and 4 of these are FWD.

 

must have been even lower when o/p was looking, but he wanted a specific model and color

 

Then my recommendation would be to expand outside the local market. I flew to California for $125, saved money over the local market, got the model/color I wanted, vistited family in California and got a road trip out of the deal. The automobile sales business in the US is a national market. If you restrict yourself to regional, you limit your options. Particularly on a low seller like the Prius family where a typical dealer only stocks a few.

By contrast, the third dealer I checked for Prius stock had 12 Prius, 9 Prius Prime, 42 RAV4 and 16 RAV4 hybrid.

 

he already gave up and bought the awd

 

See, they sold another one. Their marketing prediction is correct - AWD's are selling like hotcakes...

 

true. that's how henry ford felt about the model t