Thank you for making this thread. I have a question related to the price. I had a weird encounter at the Wellesley MA Toyota dealership yesterday. The dealership has an XSE model (their very first RAV4 prime) in store and it is also on their inventory list on the website. When we arrived at the dealership and asked about the price, the sales person said the dealership was planning to mark it up by about $10,000. This person clearly didn't know much about this car (not even the mileage on electric only) and found a financial advisor to talk to us. This financial advisor said that the car in store is not for sale; it's for "viewing purposes" only. They use this car to draw interests and to put people on a waiting list for primes that will arrive later, and there are already 20+ people on the waiting list. I know this is a very popular car, but I find this whole thing dubious (first saying they are marking it up by $10,000 and then saying it's not even for sale). I mean this is not the only dealership that has this model. I guess I just wanted to know if this is a legitimate/common sales tactics where a dealership will keep a car for display only when it is on the inventory list online? Or Is this some kind of hint that I should offer to pay above MSRP?
zichill,
You need to Google every small town Toyota dealer in ZEV states like I did and get on the ringer.
Toyota promised at least one Prime to every Toyota dealer in ZEV states regardless of volume of sales.
Small town Toyota dealers are more likely to sell at MSRP because they can’t afford to alienate customers jacking the price when everyone knows each other.
It worked for my wife and I and timing played a role because my first call landed me a spec sheet and a salesman wanting a sell from a town very small an hour drive from a modest size metro area.
The down siwhen we fly we will still be one hour drive from the town but they agreed to drive 1 hour each way to pick us up at the airport.
You don’t get that service from dealers jacking the price $10k
Note: The small dealers don't always appear when you Google for example “Toyota dealers in Oregon”
Google will present the big boys based on internet traffic to their sites.
I looked at an Oregon map and started googling the name of small towns followed by the word “Toyota”
Good Luck.
Russ
