Toyota RAV4 Forums banner

2016 Rav4 Hybrid pricing

39K views 120 replies 58 participants last post by  rav4hi 
Bogus fees are bogus. In Canada they are usually called admin fees.

However, it seems the market for the RAV4 Hybrid is very different here, at least in Ontario. Few dealers actually have them on the lot, so there are a lot of custom orders, yet people are still consistently getting 4-digit dollar discounts off MSRP, and many if not most dealers don't charge the bogus admin fees.

The bogus admin fees are allowed, but I guess there is enough competition locally that dealers have moved away from them because the optics are bad. If I were given two identical quotes, one with say a price of $1000 over invoice and another of say $700 over invoice but with a $300 admin fee, I'd take the $1000 over invoice, just to discourage the practice of charging bogus admin fees. IMO, that line should not even exist on the contract.

Things may get tougher though, since as of yesterday, Toyota is on a reduced production schedule, due to their steel plant explosion last month.

I agree that freight and PDI are also bogus names for a part of the pricing that should just be put in the MSRP, but at least that's consistent. They're the same number for everyone, and they're from the manufacturer, not the dealer. Doc/admin fees OTOH are completely made up numbers at the discretion of each individual dealership that don't actually pay for anything. They're purely a means to hide a portion of the profit margin on the contract from the customer.

So in Ontario:

Negotiated price plus:
Freight - Legit, but stupidly separated out IMO.
PDI - Legit, but stupidly separated out IMO.
OMVIC fee - Legit and only ten bucks. It stands for Ontario Motor Vehicle Industry Council.
AC fee - Legit air conditioning tax.
Environmental fee - Legit. I think it was $28.xx for my Limited Hybrid
*Admin fee* - Totally bogus. This should not even be there. In fact my dealership specifically states "no added fees" meaning no bogus admin fee. The price you negotiate is the price you negotiate... plus freight, PDI, OMVIC, AC, environmental fee.
 
The invoice price is the invoice price, but may not really be dealer cost, since they do get other incentives (money) to meet sales quotas, etc.

Nonetheless it's a useful number, because unless there is some sort of manufacturer cash rebate or something, it'd be pretty hard to get any dealer to sell you the car for below invoice unless it's an old one or something. OTOH, it may be fairly easy with some cars in some areas to get a dealer to sell you the car for say $1000 over invoice. For example, $1000 over invoice on a $33300 invoice price is 3% above invoice, yet would still be a fair amount less than MSRP.

For the record, when I negotiated my RAV4 Hybrid purchase, I went to two different companies that provide invoice pricing. One charges money up front and provides quotes on 5 cars. Luckily I had a friend who was buying already and already had an account and had only used 3 of his 5 quotes. I used one of his remaining two quotes to get the invoice price. Then I went to another company and got their free invoice pricing. They charge up front only if you want quotes, but if you only want invoice pricing it's free. The invoice pricing listed by both companies was exactly the same.

I then used this invoice pricing for my negotiations. The two quotes I was able to get were 2.x% over invoice and 3.x% over invoice, and obviously chose the former. There was no admin/doc fee for either quote (although one quote included a small referral fee as part of the overall quote). Interestingly, after I had ignored the 3.x% over invoice quote, they came back to me with a second quote of 1.x% over invoice about a week later. I was stunned because that is crazy low, but by that time it was too late since I had already signed the deal for the 2.x% over invoice at the other dealer.

BTW, when I was looking last year for at the 2015 non-Hybrid RAV4, I got the invoice price first too then. And then when I went to the dealer and looked at the invoice pricing, it was exactly the same as the document I had gotten earlier. Back then I could have gotten the car well below invoice though, since Toyota had a $1500 rebate on the car, but that's coming from Toyota, not the dealer so the dealer doesn't care.

Note, this is in Canada. It seems from this board that at least around where I live, the dealers are a lot more willing to compete against each other on price. In the US, YMMV.
 
I'd take nitrogen if it was free, or maybe if it was $1 per tire. Otherwise, no thanks.

I can't say I've ever seen any dealer anywhere charge more than $50 for nitrogen, so $299 is absolutely criminal! I'd report them to the Better Business Bureau if I ever saw that. Hell, even the $299 Doc/Admin Fee should be reported to the Better Business Bureau IMHO.
 
You can get the OEM Hybrid cargo tray for $90 on eBay and the OEM Hybrid winter floor mats (front and rear) for $100-115 on eBay. Those prices include US shipping. I have both and both are excellent. (The Canadian Hybrids come with winter floor mats for free but they kinda suck so I bought the US OEM ones and they're much, much better. And for some strange reason, the cargo tray is completely unavailable in Canada, so again, I bought the US OEM one. Shipping and fees for the tray and mats is a significant extra cost to Canada though.)

Only the OEM ones are the proper fit for the Hybrid. The aftermarket cargo trays are totally the wrong fit. The aftermarket floor mats will fit but have extra unnecessary cut outs for the rear mat.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top