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My 2006 Limited deal in the Raleigh-Durham area
by drquality on Sat Feb 04 12:36:12 PST 2006
I spent about six weeks, off and on, working my deal. I took delivery of an black Avalon Limited in mid-January in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill-RTP area. No NAV, no dynamic cruise, no stability. The physical sticker reflected only the base price, destination, mats and a $25 fuel surcharge … the physical sticker had no fluff or right-hand side junk such as sealant/undercoating … all too common in the Southeast region, stickered as ToyoGuard (as if it came from the factory that way! … the SE region re-generates its own stickers) for $700. This car was ‘on the asphalt’ and it sat pretty much the way I wanted to buy one, other than the fact that it was not my first choice for exterior color. I added a number of PPOs (post-production options such as mudguards, sat radio, that sort of thing). Were the PPOs to appear on the sticker, the MSRP would be $35,873.35 (based on NADA.com and KBB.com). Add a $399 doc fee and $9.30 inspection fee, total $36,281.65. The invoice would be (w/out doc & inspection fees) $31,513.62. My initial offer was $31,500 “delivered price” (meaning to include all monies except TTT – sales Tax, Title and Tag transfer fees). That number tied to the number I had in place for a Limited sitting on a ultra-high-volume lot on the Maryland side of the DC beltway (when comparing apples-to-apples that is … I had to adjust out items it had … and really didn’t want … such as DCC and stability) … tied, that is, BEFORE the PPO items. What I DID forget, though I am reasonably certain about it, is that SET (SouthEast Toyota), the regional distributor (NC/SC/GA/AL/FL), skims about $700 or so off the top of each Limited sold by dealers in the region (see, for example, ddent01’s post on 11/28/2005 or toyodlr’s post on 12/30/2005). I neglected to add that number into my initial offer, having whipped up the number on the quick … the car was not on their on-line inventory (a deal was pending but gone stale) but when I spotted it on the lot after hours, I quickly … maybe a wee bit too quickly … worked up my number just before stepping onto the lot during business hours). So looking back, I would have intended a $32,200 initial offer ... and to hold pretty firm ground from there on up. Then again, leaving out the $700 wasn’t so bad an error, it doesn’t exactly hurt your position to lowball a bit. Notwithstanding my $700 omission, I walked into the dealership believing (based on all the numbers I had found on the web such as at this site and the numbers I was picking up working other dealers over the phone/email) that, in leaving out all monies for the PPO items … and considering the fact that PPOs usually have almost pure fluff in the pricing, that the initial offer was hitting just a wee bit south of the dealer’s walkaway price … and that that would force the true cost of the PPO items out into the open. It really only took about 20 minutes to get the handshake, most of that not in haggling, but rather from them working to pull PPO info from the parts dept and the service dept so they could make the counter-offer. While I waited for that, they fetched me a Starbucks. The final deal was $32,531.53 + $399.00 (doc) + $9.30 (inspection) = $32,939.83 delivered price (plus TTT) So I calculate that to be “invoice plus” $1,426.21 … or “invoice plus” 4.525%. Again, pretty durn close to toyodlr’s 12/30/2005 posted number for a Limited. I looked back again at other numbers posted to see how much money I might have left on the table. For instance, I did a rough comparison to tstrick320’s 01/29/2006 deal to get a feel for that. (His approach, btw, is often a very highly recommended car buying strategy in books, websites, etc. But I had also been taking other quotes by phone, email and by walk-ins prior to this walk-in, so I sort I wasn’t a ‘pure’ walk-in guy but took more of a “mixed” approach, in that sense.) And the comparison can’t be entirely exact … for instance, there are differences in destination charges, a sticker/invoice number for Blizzard White if he got that color … and if he tipped them in advance that he was considering the extended warranty … well, that has a good bit of profit built in (in the Southeast region you are apparently buying your warranty from SET, who not only gets a cut of the profit on the sale, but supplies parts at their wholesale cost and dictates the labor costs to the dealer). It is possible they gave up some of that possible profit in his car deal. (And hinting at loans, leases and such, btw, may also have tempted them to go tight on the car, again looking at the possibility of making some it up in the F&I office). But, based on the NADA website, it seems he gave about “invoice plus” $150 (even including the doc fee). That jives out with other numbers I found (see, for example, bobr321’s post on 12/27/2005.) Add on the SE region fee (again, I am reasonably certain that the SET fee is in excess of any such fees in other regions) and what I appear to have “left on the table” is about $575. But I did get some things FOR that $575: 1) The handshake came within 20 minutes. 2) The car was on the lot—no waiting. No driving to pick the car up hundreds of miles away. And no snafus when I get there. 3) Except for exterior color, I did not have to compromise in any way on the actual vehicle. (Again, the Maryland car had options I didn’t want … and when it came to “locating” something closer to what I wanted, they started dropping the ball.) 4) I was out the door, paperworked, car prepped, within two hours. Much of that time was spent queued up for the F&I man … who was doing brisk business. 5) I was given $300 over KBB “excellent” trade for my vehicle, without a moment’s haggle. Naturally, I would have liked to sold it someone on the street for more, but for a trade, this price seemed reasonable. (I am pretty sure the dealer swapped it … instead of running it down the lane … so, in that sense, he made little on the trade, though he’ll retail what he took in. The used fleet strategy at the lot seems to be 3 to 5 year old Toyotas, so I knew he wouldn’t want it and that there was no money for me to pick up out of that end of the deal. My car looked sharp with new tires, brakes, no dings, a nice sound system – easy to swap.) For all I knoew, introducing the trade into the any of the other deals I had been working elsewhere – which I had not attempted -- might well have deep-sixed any cost advantage. Here, the trade didn’t put any drag on the deal whatsoever. (Of course, your dealing/haggling will generally go better with no trade.)

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