Building the Prius in Mexico?

This is a good point, and I don't want to lose track of it. I actually don't care where the car is built, only its build state and transit time - because, you know, it's not here for me to look at. The issue was that the salesman, being the sort of marginal psychopath that's typical of the profession, was making up a story as to why I shouldn't be worried about the car not being built yet, since it's only coming from Mexico. This was the sort of lie only likely to last a few hours if I was semi-conscious, or maybe a couple of weeks if I was a sap, but either way it was definitely going to come out to his great detriment. He's now been bounced off the deal, his dealership has a little black mark in its ledger with Toyota USA (for whatever that's worth), and his manager's taken over the sale. That's what psychopaths do - deal with the pain of the moment however works for the moment, and the consequences are Tomorrow Guy's problem.

And you thought I was "harsh" before? Seriously.

 

There are none. There are exactly two dealerships within 150 miles of my location, and then I'd go out of state. This is my wife's car and she just wants it ASAP, so I'm staying out of it for one more day while she takes pretty much what you've said to the sales manager. I would have blown this up already and waited for the call back, but then it's never been a secret to me that they need to sell cars more than I need to buy one - especially a $30k hybrid in a market with $1.50 gas. There are other reasons that this likely goes forward one way or other that I won't get into on this forum, and it is that reality that is driving my venom. These guys are the scum of the earth, and really need to be replaced by manufacturer stores so they can get back to hustling on street corners where they belong.

 

Yes. Which would be exactly what I did. This organization is just too stupid to take money for products. They should fail and their dependents starve.

I really, really can't. This is poor training on both knowledge and standards of conduct. If their primary function has devolved to order-taking, there are plenty of people out there who could do that quite competently, some likely less gainfully employed than this parasite.

In general, if car dealerships want to continue to exist, they need to raise their customer service performance by more than I think they can - like ticks, their functions have devolved into bloodsucking. The game of hiding behind franchise laws propped up by corrupt legislators is nearing its end. I don't plan to buy another new car for a long time, but I'm hoping it will be from a manufacturer store, Tesla if there are no others.

 

Bingo.

 

It is not uncommon for some models to be sourced from multiple countries. Whether you get a car built in the U.S. or Japan or Korea, etc., may depend on any number of factors. If that were true of the Prius (though we now know it is not), knowing that one Prius came from Japan wouldn't be any assurance that yours would.

Oddly, the last car that I was happy buying (i.e., the buying experience, not the car, though that was fine too), the 1988 Mercury Tracer, had this sort of complicated sourcing arrangement. As explained in Wikipedia (see Mercury Tracer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia):

"The Mercury Tracer was assembled in a number of production facilities; the location was dependent on the body style. Three-door hatchbacks were built alongside the Mazda 323 in Hiroshima, Japan. Five-door hatchbacks for the Canadian market were built in Taiwan by Ford Lio Ho, while those for the United States were built in Mexico by Hermosillo Stamping & Assembly, where all station wagons were produced."

My 4-dr hatchback came from Hermosillo, and it was a great little car, good build quality, etc. Looking at 'em on the lot, the two-doors didn't stand out with any magical asian glow or anything, but perhaps I wasn't looking closely enough . I owned a 323 sedan at the time and from the inside you literally could not tell the two cars apart if you covered the logo on the steering wheel and ignored the stickshift vs. slushbox selector between the seats.