No more solar paneled sun roofs?

I am in the Nashville area--none of the dealers in this area have the IV with Solar Pkg. I put a deposit down on one back in May. I think I was just in the right place at the right time....I got mine in about a month because my exact car just happened to be on the dealer's next allocation. Haven't seen one since then at any of the Nashville or surrounding counties' dealerships.

 

I am in southern California but I had a hard time finding a package !V without solar.....Also the !V's without solar were loaded with junk like illuminated door sills and wheel locks which totaled more than $400 in extras I did not need. So, I "settled" for a IV with the solar roof because since they didn't have those "factory loaded extras" it ended up being only about 1K over the price of a regular !V with just Nav.

So, hopefully I pick it up today. Did a cash for clunkers yesterday but they had to prep the car and wanted me to pick up this morning. Then all that hoopla hit the news.......I am hoping i don't end up driving my clunker home!

 

Ordered IV SP in May, no word is ever volunteered by the dealer - who now is suggesting months. Put a deposit with a second dealer in June - and that dealer then said two/three months - no news since.

I had considered the IV SP, or the V with AT. All the dealers in this region claim that the V AT is even less available than the IV SP. When the first order was placed I was to have the car by the end of June. I'll wait a bit, but I may go order the Lexus 250h and see which car makes it first.

Sure would be nice if Prius folks would give us a general staement regarding supply/demand. They have the data, and their dealers have my money.

 

I put a deposit on my Prius IV Gen3 SP in early June and took delivery July 11, I live in Orlando, Florida so thought I would get good use of of the SP living in central Florida. Its kind of neat to come out to the car in the parking lot and hearing the cooling fans running. They actually do keep the car cooler but its still a bit warmer than the outside temp so got the windows tinted also which has helped a lot. SP Prius do seem somewhat harder to find can only say keep trying.

 

I ordered (2) Prius III with solar roof on 6-20-09. My silver one with dark grey interior arrived 7-22-09. My wife's red one with bisque interior arrived 7-27-09. We got exactly what we wanted. The dealer put our names on them before they arrived in the port of Jacksonville so we were able to get them with only carpeted mats added. Justslappy, I hope you find what you want soon.

 

Guys: Call Northshore toyota in Covington,La....ask for Todd...he has a silver pkg IV with a solar roof..leather...nice...they tried to get me to buy it today...tell them Kris Redmann sent you

 

I am so glad I stopped to "look" at the IV w/SR at the El Cajon dealership in July. At that time they had 4-5 but they are all gone now and they only had 1 2010 on the lot at all the other day. I don't care about a slightly lower MPG, I love my roof for it's function and fun.

 

there are still some!

Guyssssssss and gals, I still have a silver III coming in soon with SR, as well as several IVs with SR that are not quite yet spoken for.

The III is silver.
The IVs are winter gray/misty, blue/tan and blue/charcoal.

Of course, tonight's allocation will be light for the next 2 weeks... there are HALF as many Prius coming into SoCal for the early August allocation as we've been getting. And, VERY few V packages at all... I suspected they'd cut back our allocations to save face in Japan, as they are back ordered there MONTHS and months... so we'll start seeing the effects of that here within 2 weeks.

Dianne

 

Re: there are still some!

Thanks Dianne

Of course, as reasonable as your response is, it is tough to match to the Priusteam response Paradox pointed out earlier in response to this thread, I'm afraid that you may be right. If Prius wants us to wait months and months (as some already have) be honest about. The unfulfilled promises have a toll - my wife would like me to go find something else. Now!

 

Re: there are still some!

I thought that the Prius team said that the U.S. and Japanese production lines are separate. Maybe they are trying to even out the distribution in the U.S. It seems that the East Coast has been very short of cars since the introduction while there has been a good supply in the West.

I know it's been good business for you Dianne, but people in Texas shouldn't have to buy in California to get what they want.

 

Re: there are still some!

Roy, while I don't mind the business from TX, or even other states, I really could have sold those cars locally too. And, had a parts & service customer AND referrals locally for business. A 1-shot sale to a different state is not conducive to long term dealership business, if you think ahead for the future. When I have enough cars I will do this, but when I run short of cars as is happening to me, and elsewhere, it's probably not going to happen a lot.

The smaller allocations are not a result of balancing cross country, although it's obviously needed. Every region is suffering the same fate right now.

Di

 

Re: there are still some!

OK. I'm glad that mine is in the pipeline. It is the next allocation to my dealer in Oregon. A good dealer like you!

 

Re: there are still some!

 

Are There? Re: there are still some!

Update.

Yesterday, the dealer with whom I've had an order since May told me that I was first on their list for a IV SR. However, they said they had not yet seen one at their dealership. They also said Toyota had told them a week ago not to take any more orders/preferences for the SR option. No idea when or if they will see one.

Another dealer simply doesn't return calls (and I call them less than once per month).

I asked earlier - can the Prius Team gives us better status info? At best it seems the IV SR and V AT are only available in very small numbers and given other comments on the board, the frequency of new deliveries is likely to be reduced (not redistributed to the east coast).

 

Re: Are There? Re: there are still some!

And now, begining with August production, you will pay $4280 for the solar/nav package.

Because the Rocky Mountain region doesn't get IV without SR, it seems that IV with SR is more readily available here. If you are willing to travel, you could probably get one pretty quick. I had a dealer offer me one for $200 under MSRP. Ironically, I wanted a IV without solar or nav, so I will be traveling to get mine.

 

Re: Are There? Re: there are still some!

Are you referring to the IV pricing increase to add the USB/Safety Connect to the IV? The NAV/Solar package is $3600 as opposed to just NAV at 1800....

 

I'm having the same problem in Chicago.

 

I ordered my SR IV at the end of June. Got a call today that it is supposed to land odd the boat in 3 weeks. I have survived the wait.