A few thoughts on having traded in my 2018 Plus for a new 2020 LE (different name, same trim). Financials First of, if you can get a state tax credit you may actually come out of this with a plus. The math for me was 27000 negotiated dealer price -3000 current Toyota rebate -20500 trade in value = 3500 + 200 sales tax +600 fees = 4300. That's what I paid. Once you add in the federal tax rebate of 4500 and the MA state incentive of 1500, it's a profit of 1700. I only had 2000 miles on the old car, though, so the situation will obviously change with different trade in values. The positive changes For me, what drove my decision (apart from the free money) was the 5th seat. With that I think I'll be happy with the car for many years to come. Other changes: White interior elements replaced with black (which I already had replaced as a customization on my 2018) Seat heater buttons moved from the obscure to the accessible. Space in front of the cup holders now has a nicely perforated bottom so that things don't slide around. Larger sun visors. The plus/minus The infotainment unit is now an Entune 3 system with Apple car play. While that's great progress from Toyota, it's of no use to me, as I use Android. The saleperson was predicting that Android Auto could be retrofitted for a fee given that Toyota started to roll it out in some models like the Rav4 and the recent history of Toyota retrofits of CarPlay into select models. But there is no guarantee that's ging to happen and I'm not yet sure I want to pay the 200$. The menu navigation at the side of the display was converted into physical buttons. My 2018 had the Toyota navigation. I found that rather painful for searching and entering destinations, and thus never used it for navigation, but it was still nice to have it always available on the display to orient myself quickly on the map when my phone navigation was not on. On the 2020 the internal navigation was removed from the lowest trim. Instead there is an app called Scout GPS, which seems to be at least as bad for searching and navigation as the Toyota internal system but with the added pain of being complicated to set up and always requiring an app on your phone to run. Toyota safety connect seems to be new. Its's free for the first 3 years and registration got pushed onto me by the sales person. Maybe Toyota gets percentages from some optional offers that accompany it such as the Verizon car wifi plan. Safety connect itself could be useful. It's supposed to be able to track your car when it's stolen, but I'd love to know how difficult that could be disabled by a professional thief. It also gives you a button at the top near the cabin lights to connect to a Toyota dispatcher for emergency services or roadside assistance and will call automatically in case of crashes. There is a Toyota App which connects to it. There is a single useful thing on it, it shows your tire pressure for each tire. Nothing else, no location, charge status, etc. The negative On my 2018 I had a flexible cloth trunk cover that pulled up when opening the hatch. While it looked a little flimsy it was actually very convenient as it was flexible enough to stay on top of a large load in the trunk: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTnEDt44mOHLlKHJK8BF7_9jKg47h_VfZfObvwWoK0gFFbnRvvT&s In my 2020 I have a hard cover that gets arrested horizontally and does not lift with the trunk. While it looks more solid, there is so little space between the cover and the raised floor that I find it entirely unpractical. Good enough for hiding a laptop bag I suppose. https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQYfedO_faAAXqnMz5DBWMIJJGJv1HQ3m3eVFD9aKnmA66gpJHN5g&s I was looking on the web how to buy the cloth cover but wasn't able to find it anywhere. If anyone knows where to get it, please let me know.
1000 mpy? Wow I thought I drove few miles with 2000 mpy. if it wasn’t for our annual 500 mile trip I’d seriously consider ride sharing but the Prime is a gee wizz fun toy so screw the economics. Enjoy.
Did the same thing for the last 3 years Carvana gave me 22300 for a 18 with 8400 miles.dealer only offer 18k
Same here. Sold a 2017 for a profit to buy a 2020 in the Northeast and take advantage of Colorado's $5000 credit before it decreased to $4000
Congrats on the profitable trade. That's a news to me. That feature alone may be worth switching my 2017 PRIME, if and only if, I can pull off profit out of the trade. If I can find mine, I will give it to you... but I don't where it went. Yap, that flexibility is more functional, but not having anything and just carrying old throw in the back turned out to be even better.
I bought the car in 1/2019 from leftover dealer inventory, so same mpy here. Combining ride sharing & rental should indeed come out cheaper for us, several of my friends do it that way, but now I'm the cool guy who can offer rides in his Ferrari, so screw the economics Wow, that's a difference. What speaks for the trade-in in Massachusetts is that you only have to pay sales tax on the value difference.
I got burnt with a rental in San Francisco once where someone took interest in my ragged looking backpack in the trunk and smashed the window. Since then I'm paranoid and try not to leave anything in plain sight in the car. Just checked my hatch and the 4 hooks, where the cover's strips would be attached to, are gone. What a shame, will check out the throw strategy.
It's hard to imagine a profitable trade in with the insane taxes and fees we have on new cars in Colorado. Not sure how that works if you're buying out of state. It's also weird to pay so much sales and registration tax, but also get an income tax credit. Why not just take the sales tax off upfront?
I'd guess it's because the government gets free use of that money for however long it is until you file your taxes and they send your check. Assuming you have a refund coming, that is. And those fees & taxes are one of the things I DON'T miss from when we lived in Colorado.
The Colorado credit is refundable, oddly enough. The real answer is it's probably different governments that get the money. State vs local vs RTD or whatever else we pay for. For anyone who doesn't know what we're complaining about, sales tax on a new car here is almost 9%. It looks like the first year registration for a 2020 Prime is around $570 (around 2%), and it slowly decreases from there each year. They also charge sales tax on used cars which is extremely annoying.
They discontinued the rebate for PHEVs in 2019 but now reintroduced it in 2020: MOR-EV eligibility requirements effective January 1, 2020: Only purchases and leases made on or after January 1, 2020 are eligible. Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) with a sales price under $50,000 are eligible for a $2,500 rebate. Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) with a sales price under $50,000 and an all-electric range of 25+ miles are eligible for a $1,500 rebate. Zero-emission Motorcycles (ZEMs) will no longer be eligible. MOR-EV | MOR-EV is a statewide program that issues up to $1,500 in rebates for plug-in electric vehicle buyers The car list on their website hasn't been updated yet but based on their stated requirements the Prius Prime should be eligible. Sounds like the vehicle excise tax in Massachusetts which is 2.5% of value yearly. They define value as 90% of MSRP in the model year, 60% in the next, 40% in year 3, and so on.
We're almost that bad here for sales tax. Tampa (highest in the state) is 8.5%. Up here in Pasco county it's only 7% and, thankfully, we pay tax on cars based on where we live. But they DO charge sales tax on used cars here as well. Car registration, though is $14.50, $22.50, or $32.50 depending on the weight. And we don't have state income tax. Gee. I wonder why I hear so many New York accents here.
Which yeah did the Prime move to having 3 seats in the back? In my opinion, if you are a family guy with kids, it’s worth it just for that....
Oops. Just saw that the old one WAS missing the rear middle seat. That’s worth it. Also, having never driven a Prius before I bought my ‘20 Prime brand new this past Feb, I have no idea where these hard to find heated seats buttons are? Also I agree the white looks a little tacky, and while I sometimes wish I had then giant infotainment screen, I’m fine with the LE and standard Apple CarPlay (luckily I’ve had iPhones well before CarPlay became a thing)
I feel the same about the cloth trunk cover - you can likely get it from a dealership thought it's pretty pricey. The one challenge I'm finding though is how to mount the cloth trunk cover to the rear hatch door frame. You can find 2 of the 3 hook points pretty easily in Toyota parts but I've tried searching the forums for that final hatch hook but finding the hook part # doesn't seem to be that easy .
