Question: Dealer Shown Car

Because of the dishonestly of this dealer I would talk to the owner explain all of what you were told and get my deposit back. Take your business elsewhere. $1000 off is not enough.

 

I had a dealer show car Buick a few years ago. It was almost new, except that it had a few hundred miles on it. The car was fine and I managed to save some money

 

Brittany, you may have made up your mind about this, but if not, just a few more words of advice:

The dealer being not honest with you is itself a great reason to get the deposit back and shop somewhere else. I have had a terrible experience with a dishonest dealer in my first attempt to buy a Prius and I decided to dump that dealer because I could not trust them anymore, no matter how good of a deal they would offer to keep me.

Now, apart form the dealer, the "show" Prius has not only been driven 1.1K miles but also been damaged. In that case, I don't care if the car is still in the dealer inventory and has not been registered, or if selling show cars as brand new is a common dealer practice, or whatever, the Prius is USED, period. Mine had 3 miles on it, 2 from the dealer driving it to the nearest gas station to deliver it to me with a full tank, and 1 from transport. That's a BRAND NEW car. $500 discount in the "show" Prius is not enough; in fact, I think it is absurd since I got a $500 bump in my trade-in to close the deal (after getting almost 1K above KBB B)). If the dealer does not accept the 1K (to me it should be more than that), fine, tell him you do not want the car and let him struggle to sell it to someone else or have them to return it to the factory. Not your problem!!!

What's up with all these dealers who will not give up any profit to save a good customer? Some dealers have no idea how powerful an unsatisfied customer can be... my previous dishonest dealer learned that pretty quickly...

 

Brittany- Wow, where were you when I was 16! Just kidding. Please do not let the dealership take advantage of you and your husband like that. In CA there is no such thing as a non-refundable deposit on a new car. I do not like the way the dealership and the salesperson have treated you with the little lies and then telling you the "truth". I would not trust them at all. They are counting on your impulsive, gotta have it now desire to screw you on a used car with 1,100 miles on it. Were it me, and I were not concerned about the miles and the care in which they were put on the car, I would offer $2K below MSRP for that car or wait until a new car in your first color choice arrived with no miles on it. If they can't do that I would walk - I still can't believe a deposit is non-refundable when they can't produce a new car that you want in a timely manner. Good luck and I hope you get the car you truly want at a good price. Money is hard to come by-don't just give it away.

 

When I bought my prius, it had 6 miles on it. Even so, I had to ask where its been and why it'd have 6 miles, and if they had any vehicles with less. If only I can pick up the car right off the assembly line.

 

Brittany,
What was the outcome?

 

I just took delivery of a winter grey V with AT. It had 300 miles on it and had been used as a demo for 15 days (you can find that out by going to the Toyota owners site and inputting the VIN of the car you want to check. Under "Service" you can see the dealer prep activity that made the car ready for demo.

My car is perfect. The fact that it got used for demo didn't hurt anything. Go for it.

 

Playing devil's advocate, you really don't know that. Might be the case cosmetically, but you don't know what (if any) abuse the test drivers and/or salesmen subjected the car to. I can only think of how most salesmen encourage prospective buyers to put a car through its paces during test drives.

 

If the car has or has not been abused by salespeople, test-drivers, etc., is one thing. The fact it had 300 miles on it, in my book, requires they discount that car for the buyer to compensate them for the 300 miles put on the car. And by discount I do not mean give me a remote starter for $50. What is the deal with that anyway? A remote starter, really? Are we all a bunch of highly valuable targets with assasins looking to punch our tickets via car bombs? I mean why would one remote start a Prius and just let it run and use gasoline and negatively impact your mileage?

(Just kidding by the way. Though I do not have, and will never have, a remote starter, I guess if one lived somewhere where it snowed and one's car was iced over, one might want to have the defrosters kick in before driving off. Or maybe if one lived in the desert one might want to have the AC going full blast before getting in the car. But for me- no thank you. I hate car alarms too by the way because of all of the asshats who can't seem to get in and out of their car/suv/truck without setting their alarms off for 30 seconds before they remember how to deactivate said alarms, now that everyone is looking at them and their XXX car.)