Here's one piece of weirdness, I'm curious if any other Prius owners have seen this. While I was waiting to have the car serviced yesterday, replacing a burned out HID headlight, a salesperson approached me and gave me some paperwork. They offered me $14,000 to buy back my car. At the time I was stewing over having to deal with replacing the third HID headlight in 18 months.....so I didn't think to ask..... 1. Is it only for Prius owners? Maybe they can reclaim some used Priuses and make a profit selling used ones. 2. Is it for those with HID headlights? Maybe this is Toyotas way of getting those lemons off the market? It didn't occur to me at the time to ask these questions, but Monday, when they are open I am going to call them. I want to ask them----- 1. "My car has the HID headllights.....do you still want the car?" 2. "My Prius has the HID headlights, are you going to replace them or fix them somehow, or simply sell it to an unsuspecting customer who isn't aware there's a serious problem with the headlights"? Has Toyota offered anyone else out there to buy back their Prius? Not that the price is high enough for me to do it....
Toyota hasn't asked me, but previous brands have. What they really wanted, more than to buy my old car, was to sell me a new one to replace it. Like stock brokers, whether the market is headed up or down, they make money on the churn.
As Hill can/will attest, this topic comes up about once a year; http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-prius-main-forum/42364-toyota-wants-your-used-toyota-resell.html
Sometimes a dealer will have a buyer "queued up" and waiting for a particular model used car at a particular price range to come onto the lot. In this case I'd say it's likely the dealer already had a prospective buyer lined up for that car.
The dealer has sent me two letters since I bought mine in 2007, asking to sell it back. As above, they are just hoping that I buy a shiney new one - which I would love to get some day, but by then it will be 2015!!!
When I bought my car there was a booklet that listed different law for different states. My sales told me if they had to fix one thing for more than three times, then they can buy the car back from you. Or they have to, I wasn't sure the exact wording.
Arrh, that's an interesting take on it hptsang. So what you're saying is that in some states there might be a consumer protection law (lets call it an "anti lemon" law) whereby the dealer is obliged to offer to buy back the vehicle in certain cases of recurring problems (as in 3 or more times with the same problem) during the warranty period. Very interesting. Actually that type of law is a good thing. I know a person who bought a fairly pricey SUV (approx $45k AU) several years ago and every time they had heavy rain the tailgate would leak. It went back to the dealer numerous times and they replaced the hatch seal (because that is relatively easy) but it must have been some more serious underlying problem and the dealership never resolved it. They basically just "blew them off" until the warranty expired and then washed their hands of it.
Gas prices are escallating again. There may be a demand for your used Prius if the dealer has none on the lot. I have not seen a lot in stock at any dealer I have been driving by. Though I generally see one here and there, they are not there long at all. A year ago when I got mine, the day I picked mine up, there were 2 people swapping in their used, for new, at the time it was an economically sound idea.
My dealer sent a couple emails several months back about buying back my Scion xA. I was facing back surgery and figured well why not see what they have to offer. I knew my surgery was going to be nearly a year of recovery. We took it in they made a fair offer and sold it to them. I was really quite attached to the little car but knew it would be sitting a lot of the course of the next year.
I just got one of those too, nearly three years after I bought mine. (Somehow they managed to track me down in SC despite having bought the car in MA while I lived in CT. Wonder if it ever dawned on them that this won't work!) Just ignore it unless you already planned to trade. What they'll do is offer you a "good" price on your car, use that as leverage to try to sell you something new for MSRP or very near, then turn around and sell your old car for a big profit. It's good business for them at your expense.
I wasn't buying anything to replace mine just sold it to them. It was paid for, I got a decent deal so I took the money.
Have a friend in the local sheriff's dept. with a K9 drug sniffer? Have them check it out. Maybe you're driving around with a million in contraband in the obscure cavities.:hippie:
