2010 Prices Paid and Details

After lurking for a long time, finally bought a couple of weeks ago.

Hopefully this will help folks understand the current market.

Very happy with the car so far. It does what it is suppose to do...

Prius IV with Solar

MSRP $31,907

Invoice $29,690

Paid $28,181

Doc Fee $ 299 (I hate these add ons)

Out the door $28,480 ( I chose 100% - Zero% financing instead of the extra $1000 rebate)

Feel pretty good about the deal. Was basically thrown out of two other dealerships...Normal dealer BS everybody pays the same price for their cars, you can't by the car for that....truecar prices are not real.....

Truecar pricing and this forum were a big help in finding the bottom..

 

So the price of the car was $28,181 and the only additional fees you paid was $299?? There was no additional taxes or anything else??

 

You paid too much. The dealer got you good for a Prius II. I paid $24,777 for a Prius III. Your price should have been no more than $23,800

 

What was the MSRP on your Prius III? 23800 was my original goal, but no dealer would sell it to me at that price. I am glad they extended the 0% APR promotion to 11/15. Longo actually told me if I pay cash they can sell me at 23800, but not with finance. So with the promo ending in a week, I decided to take the car for 24200.

 

I wouldn't have paid more than the MSRP that is posted on Toyota's own website... much less than that price to begin with. Did you shop around or just settle on one particular dealer? I know there are a couple in my area that are pretty firm on their listing price, regardless if it is over MSRP, but there are some that are $2K under if you are patient enough to walk away and give them a day to beg you to return.

 

I emailed and talked with 6 dealers nearby for about 2 weeks. Weird that no one wants to lower their price much.

 

I know you probably don't like being pressured, but I am willing to bet that if you had gone in person to neogotiate with most of them you would have gotten a better price from a few of those dealers.

Per my brother who is a car salesman (not for Toyota, darn ) he pays little mind to those trying to neogotiate over e-mail because there is no pressure on the car salesman to lower the price to make up for his time spent with the customer. The e-mail request takes none of his time away and if he doesn't sell the car it's as if he was never with the customer to begin with.

My advice, go in person, plan to spend the entire day at the dealer. That sucks, I know, but don't make the entire day about neogotiating the price. Wear him out by making you tell him everything about the car. Test drive it for an hour. Make him read the manual to you word by word. Put the pressure on HIM to lower the price because he has spent 5 hours with you trying to sell you this vehicle. He wants, maybe NEEDS to have your sale to make up for all the customers that passed him by when he was stuck helping you.

Not saying that e-mail sales don't work, as I've heard good stories, but it seems you are paying the extra price on your car for the convenience of no haggle and no pressure when using e-mail.

 

I got my sliver Prius II on 10/20 for 22733 out the door with 3 yr. 0% APR here at San Jose (Near San Francisco). I didn't expect price gone up that much in 2 1/2 weeks.

 

That's a really good price.

 

I emailed to 6 to 8 dealers and got the lowest price by emailing back and forth. While the other few dealers just keep sending me stupid high prices and some from the automate reply system. If you email to all dealers within 150 miles from you, you may find one that is willing to back down for whatever reason they have. All you need is one and it does not take much of your effort. I found out you get quicker respone if the request is done through the Toyota website and put down "Ready to buy today for the best price".

If you are lucky enough to find a dealer that are willing to back down, follow up with a phone call to confirm the price before you drive to the dealer since most car salesman are crooks.

I was lucky, I found my dealer in 3 days. I though it's going to take 3 weeks of emailing.

One dealer even email me a week after I bought my Prius II (I didn't bother to reply his email cause his was high) and now his price is matching what I have paid for mine. I am going to reply him that "sorry, your price is good but one week too late".

 

I got tired after staying at the dealer for more than a couple hours and can't think straight.

Your brother probably not those that work primary in the Internet Sales Department.

 

Prius II, Blizzard White

Selling Price w/special color, mats, window tint, side moldings: $20,353
Out-the-Door with Georgia 6% tax (tax is on price after trade-in), dealer fee, title: $21,830

I agree with the post about e-mailing to get your price narrowed down and then being prepared for some work face-to-face. The dealership where I bought, when I was actually in the showroom, gave me a mediocre offer on paper and I said I needed to see their best price. They kept pushing me to name a figure (what will it take? what will it take?) and I wasn't going to do it. I was not going to do the back and forth. I was getting very stressed and I finally stood up ready to go to another nearby dealer. At that point, they came back with a second offer that was over $2,000 less than the first....and I happily took it. In all, I was in the showroom for over 4 hours...but I drove away in a new Prius!

 

maybe I am missing something here but how did you get the car for 1500 under invoice?

 

I got my III w/Nav for $3000 under Invoice the end of July! It's possible...

 

how are they making money on that?

 

Beats me, but I'm certainly not complaining... Honestly, the mark-up on vehicles is probably way more than any dealer ever wants you to believe, and I seriously doubt they lost any money on the deal...

 

If you don't mind me asking, who was the dealer you bought the car from and who was the dealer that came back with the matching offer? I live near the bay area and most of the dealers are not backing down on the quote. Thanks.

 

I'm a few days away from making a final decision on a Prius V, Blizzard Pearl with Nav that is sitting in inventory. MSRP is $31,320 and the offer on the table (to me from the dealer) is $29,842 (plus tax and title).

I'm a poor negotiator and won't be able to get some of the absolute bottom dollar deals that some of you have gotten, but I'd like to be sure it is a fair deal. Is it a decent price?

Also, I thought he told me I was getting Safety Connect (like onstar) on this car, but somewhere I read that you can only get that with the advanced technology package, which is not on this car. Obviously I'll need to clarify before making the deal, since I really want the Safety Connect., but would appreciate any insight on the value of the service. Thanks.

 

I've been looking to buy a Prius 4 with no packages (or the nav package) and I was hoping if anyone has bought a similar configuration recently, could you share how much you paid for your purchase? The consistent quotes I have from dealers are in the $24,900 range after the $1000 discount. Is that a fair price?

Also, I observed something interesting today. I've been monitoring a couple of dealer websites to judge if the Prius is moving fast enough or not out of dealer inventory. That would in turn tell me how much I can negotiate. While I have not observed a significant depletion in dealer stock in the last week, I noticed a new section on the dealer websites called Final Closeout and all the Prius cars are listed in that section; makes me wonder if we will see a better specials starting November 16th when the current set of incentives expire. though I dont want to wait to buy the car, I think the deals can only get better and maybe I should wait for another week. Maybe the 2011s are on their way?? Any suggestions?

 

You've a lot of questions

But as for waiting until the 16th, after getting so-so quotes from a half-dozen dealers, that's what I'm doing.