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Prices Paid: Buying & Leasing Experiences Toyota Camry Prices Paid and Buying Experience
6689 messages, Last post on Sep 04, 2008 at 10:48 PM
You are in the Prices Paid: Buying & Leasing Experiences Forum. Your Hosts are car_man & kyfdx
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Before reading this forum, I thought I knew how to buy cars. I was wrong. The game has truly changed over the past few years. So, to begin, thank you everyone. You saved us $1000+. I’d like to share and digest what we’ve learned here and through research at other helpful buying sites including CarBuyingTips.com. Since I bought my first Toyota in 1982, I always knew to bargain up from the dealer invoice and not down from MSRP. But in today’s era where literally everyone knows the invoice price, the game is for dealers to seek their profit outside that very public number. If you think you are getting a great deal by being offered the car “at invoice” you are getting cheated! What we bought the week is what many here seek- A 2005 Camry LE, auto, with side airbags and floor mats. Lunar Mist was our color choice. I have to admit I was pretty jealous reading that California buyers are sometimes getting their Camrys at out the door prices of $17,500 to $17,700 (low CA ad pricing is usually without the airbags we insist on). That’s nearly impossible here in the Southeast because of the supposedly forced $590 Southeast Toyota Administration Charge that most dealers claim they have to pay, too. And the destination charge (delivery fee) is now raised to a whopping $590 and an onerous $20 gas fee is piled on, too. So, with such challenges, getting the car this week in Florida at $17,950 for a total of $19,245 out the door was WAY better than I thought I could do after my first discussions with dealer internet departments. It really helped by digging deep into the past six months posts here and learning the right strategies for today’s market. Kudos to all of the CA folks who can do better but for buyers around here, I’d like to return the favor and try to do my small part to help you save a bundle, too. ($1500 below invoice) How we did it: I decided to use the “Fax Attack” approach advocated in two newspaper articles I read online that were found through a Google search. The CarBuyingTips.com site refers to another website that charges about $35 for a package on such buying tactics but I didn’t think I needed to spend the $35 to understand the technique. At CarBuyingTips.com there is a free downloadable spreadsheet that you can customize for each offer bid that you make. I faxed six offers, each on a specific in-stock individual VIN number car. The advice I found is to send up to about ten such offers. This is a cinch now since you can go to BuyAToyota.com and easily check the inventory at any dealer in your region. My strategy was to best estimate the true cost to the dealer (not the invoice price!!) and make an offer that gives the dealer a 2.5% profit. I figured that was more than fair with five or six months left in the model year and so many automatic Camry LE’s sitting on dealer lots now. From what I learned, I called each dealer and asked the receptionist the name and fax number of the Fleet Manager. To each, I faxed a cover letter with a price offer and IMPORTANTLY, a “firm out the door bid price” including tax and tag transfer. Also included was a printout directly from BuyAToyota.com with the features on the specific VIN number and Toyota’s MSRP on that exact car. I also faxed the 2.5% profit spreadsheet I did for that particular car. It’s easy to do this spreadsheet once and then resave the file with the minor changes for a particular car’s features. My typical cover letter read like this: Dear Mr. XXXX, I’d like to make an offer on one of your in-stock vehicles, a 2005 Camry LE, Vin #XXXXXXXXXXXXX. With inventories and sales expectations high this month, I’d like to buy the car at a fair profit to you, and price to us. You have XX similarly equipped Camy LE’s in Lunar Mist in stock. (check the inventory for that dealer at buyatoyota.com) Our offer is based on the enclosed spreadsheet and enclosed copy of the vehicle’s options. The offer of $17,970.46 assumes an additional $100 tag transfer fee and sales tax of $1174.58 for a firm out the door offer price of $19,245.04. Please let me know if we can do business. We are ready to buy immediately. I can be reached at XXX-XXX-XXXX or emailed at XXXX  XXX.com Sincerely, . . . My offer was based on a car that had a MSRP of $22,223. This MSRP did not include the $590 Southeast Administration Charge, nor the $500 dealer prep fee that most dealers also try to squeeze. My offer at a 2.5% dealer profit also ignored the Southeast Charge and any other fees, since I wasn’t about to get suckered into paying $500+ on dealer prep, additional ad fees, etc. The current rebate here in the Southeast is $1,000. On the CarBuyingTips.com spreadsheet, I typed in the Dealer Holdback profit at 3% even though some websites claim it’s only 2%. I figured that if Honda's holdback is 3%, why would Toyota dealers expect anything less. Central Florida Toyota in Orlando called me the next day to inform me it was accepting my offer. I had also sent the offer to dealers in Jacksonville, Tampa and here in Gainesville. Our key to success could be that was my offer was made within the last 15 days of the month and this particular dealer had 10 Camry LEs in auto in Lunar Mist with side airbags. They had 46 total auto Camry LEs in Lunar Mist. I guessed they had to move inventory and was likely right. Two other dealers said they’d sell me the car at $19,700-$19,800 out the door. All others came in at an almost identical price, roughly $20,700, reflecting the so-called “dealer invoice (not so) bargain price.” I also received a bid from CarsDirect.com at a very high $20,700. When we went to the dealer, we expected games so I asked the salesman to, in advance, fax us a Buyers Sheet reflecting the Out the Door price of $19,245 with the VIN # listed. We still expected games. After the 120 mile drive, we nervously went inside, and simply had my best buying experience in 20 years of haggling for cars. Not a single problem! We were even allowed to charge the purchase, netting another $200+ in rebates on my cashback rebate credit card. Thanks for indulging this LONG post—I really hope it can help buyers in the south and elsewhere. . . This dealer, Central Florida Toyota, doesn’t charge the $590 Southeast Toyota fee on its invoice. The salesman told me it was built into the $20,125 MSRP. (This price was raised $150 on 2-8-05.) So, I really don’t know if the other dealers are working in collusion or if my dealer’s inventory is so huge that they find a way around having to deal with it. When other fleet managers tried to tell me on the phone that it was forced on them, too, I replied that there would certainly be a dealer revolt in this part of the country if none of that money ever came back to the dealers as other incentives they receive from time to time beyond their Dealer Holdback. When I said that, I found reluctant agreement. (continued)
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Continued from post just above. . . Be sure when you negotiate that you get a firm Out the Door Price. That’s key. If not, you’ll get stuck with surprise charges at the end. The two dealers that gave me the lowest prices both rejiggered their own numbers on the Buyers Sheet to hit the Out the Door Price. That price is what is truly important and it should reflect EVERYTHING including sales tax and tags. Also, at first I was going to ignore any dealer that had cars with that dastardly, supposed $699 Toyoguard package on the car. But I decided that since the package likely cost the dealer next to nothing, and since it meant nothing to me, if I could still get a great deal on a car with the package, so be it. So, my car has it and I put only $125 on my spreadsheet for this item’s dealer cost even though I saw sites that say it costs dealers $239. The saleman claimed the undercoating makes the car 11% quieter but who knows--our Camry is as quiet as any Lexus or Mercedes I've ever been in. If the Fleet or Internet Manager doesn’t meet your price, I urge you to be friendly and polite. Consider letting them know you have already received lower offers than theirs. Two dealers did indeed call me back later with lower prices so it pays to play it cool, but friendly and respectful. The car is incredible, by the way. Happy hunting!
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Folks, I hope this isn't off subject but if, like us, you buy the Camry because you care about safety, read on. After we proudly pulled our new Camry into the garage, I noticed that the tires were the Goodyear Integrity model rather than the different stock tire reviewed by Consumer Reports as part of the Camry review--and not reviewed as being particularly good, at that. I looked up the Goodyear Integrity reviews at TireRack.com and one other site, expecting good things. However, this current Camry LE stock tire is universally hated with many hyproplaning complaints! Since we bought our Camry with side airbags for safety, I immediatlely traded in these tires locally and paid a $172 difference for new Kumho 716 tires. These well-priced tires are rated by literally hundreds of buyers as tops and make our new car even quieter. With the torrential Florida rains we've again had this week, we sure are happy we immediately switched to a much better rated tire. Something to consider when you budget for your new purchase. |
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Replying to: happycamry (Mar 26, 2005 3:14 pm) |
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Replying to: happycamry (Mar 26, 2005 3:12 pm) This is a cinch now since you can go to BuyAToyota.com and easily check the inventory at any dealer in your region. How do you check dealer inventory through BuyaToyota.com? I've been all through the site and don't see that capability. Thanks. |
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Replying to: phili (Mar 27, 2005 9:07 am) |
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Replying to: phili (Mar 27, 2005 9:07 am) |
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Replying to: phili (Mar 27, 2005 9:07 am)
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Replying to: patricd (Feb 20, 2005 10:37 am) |
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Replying to: fredvh (Mar 27, 2005 10:20 pm) Another thing to try is to go directly to a dealer's own website. Most that I checked have links to the same pages to check inventory. Also, if you are not even seeing the place to enter the zipcode at the bottom of the www.buyatoyota.com page, you may want to try a different web browser. Be sure you have relavitely recent version. Common browsers include Explorer, Mozilla, Opera and Safari. |
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