I know I"m not the only one and there have been posts about this, but I wanted to add to the growing list of people who are done with Toyota and their dealerships. When dealerships take advantage of customers on a large scale (I’m looking specifically at Toyota who has added dealer markups of $12-15K for a Toyota Rav4 Prime), all the decades of being a customer and advocate goes away. Yes, you can take advantage because of the supply situation, and Toyota can lose lifetime customers in the process because of the dealership and Toyota not doing anything about it when customers complained.
I will consider Lexus without giving them the benefit of the doubt, but not Toyota because of the actions of just about every Toyota dealership I have seen over the past two years. I’m just one person, but I’ve got to think there are more like me who are done with Toyota for their dealerships’ actions.
Car dealers aren’t known for doing anything other than what the market demands. Buy used until they quit doing that.
I don’t count on any car dealer to do anything other than act in their self interest. If they go overboard and lose customers, that’s self-correcting as well.
With my car before my current model, I bought a new Corolla. The first dealer had PNW markups on top of MSRP. I saw that and left that dealership. I went to another part of town and saw that they didn’t do that. I bought a car there. I also based it on cost plus a small markup based on Consumer Reports at that time.
Recently (2 years ago) I bought a late model used Corolla Hatchback. The price listed online was reasonable (based on my research) and I sent an email saying that I would buy it. A few emails and one phone call later and I bought it and had it delivered to my house all within a few hours on a Saturday evening.
I also bought it when the weather was terrible (Seattle) in January. I controlled the process and was determined to buy it with no more hassle than buying a kitchen appliance. I succeeded. It’s up to you to manage the process.
I didn’t leave my house, I paid cash, no extended warranties. No trade in. Line up your money outside of the dealership, deal with your old car outside of the dealership. Just don’t encourage the nonsense in the first place.
You don’t negotiate with a child or a drunk. Don’t do it with a car sales/finance manager either.
This sentence is the best in the entire thread.