How much are you paying for your 2017 Tacoma?

It wasn't apparent that you were asking about those figures, and I don't click links posted by brand new posters.

Apart from intellectual curiosity, what would those figures do for you?

 

Here's a youtube video showing the install on a Corolla. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLGtnPFv_-M

Cost for the part is something like $40 if I remember correctly, and invoice price installed when ordering (SET) is $64.90, so I just ordered it with the truck. Handy for rear seat pax

 

Knowledge is power right!? Knowing the actual numbers walking in would allow for realistic negotiations. If I walk in thinking the dealer is getting a $1500 holdback then I come off looking like a jerk. Since it looks like dealer cost is very near invoice that seems like the place to start. Here in Oregon I don't think walking out the door below cost is realistic. Granted if I finance through the dealer that gives me a little more bargaining power and the potential to go below cost potentially...

 

SR5 V6 4X4 Double Cab, Short-bed with Tow package. Purchasing in NY

Retail =$32,765
Retail + tow package ($650) = $33,415
Retail + tow package + destination charge ($940) = $34,355
Total Price offer to me = $33,365
What I am thinking of asking = $31,500 or $32,000????

 

So first off, if the dealer doesn't think you're a jerk you've probably not negotiated the best deal. This isn't a popularity contest. The entire point of haggling is to straddle where you'll end up and step them in to your goal. (though there's a difference in being a jerk and being an asshole, don't do the latter)

As to what the dealer's real cost is -- trouble is that holdback isn't the only way they make money on a sale. So yes, by knowing holdback you might know one more piece of the equation than I do, but neither of us will have the full view of the other bits. Another post mentioned dealer cash, which apparently is minimal for Tacomas. True? No idea. Seems likely. What's the flat on financing with the dealer? 1%? 2% more? Or do they mark up interest? Lots of inputs to the dealer's cost basis we don't know.

Complicating the whole matter is that we're talking about a fairly high demand vehicle. Bargaining power tends to be limited when there's five other guys in line behind you willing to pay more.

Now, I'm just stating my opinion and conversing. I don't deign to tell you what is important to you or not. Do what makes you happy.

You mention going into one dealer and negotiating. That's you fighting it out with one dealer, seeing how low you can get that one dealer. You'll probably extend that over a few days as you'll need to walk out at least once to ensure you've pulled them down as far as you could. Add more time as you do the same with other dealers. I'm getting tired just thinking about it.

What I prefer is to pit the dealers against one another while I go about my business. See my post #332 for my technique. Several didn't reply, others claimed nobody sold Tacomas for under MSRP, others responded with mediocre deals, and two responded with very good deals.

 

Define "Total Price"... is that out the door? Inclusive of all fees?

What does invoice pricing add up to for the config and how does that compare to the 31.5 or 32k you're thinking of asking?

 

Total price - not including taxes and registration

 

Invoice is $32876

 

You have an Invoice + $489 + TTL offer in hand if I'm understanding correctly.

You can offer what you want, but I'd be surprised if you managed even 32k let alone 31.5 -- those are nearly $900 to $1400 below invoice and most deals I've read of here don't manage to go below invoice much if at all.

 

I will ask.... not the first or the last time I get thrown out of a dealership!

 

When I bought my Trail Premium a few weeks ago, there was no haggling. MSRP was $40,724. My salesman said he could sell it to me for $37,400. Done. That took 10 minutes of my time.

I picked it up nine days later. I was in the dealer 30 minutes.

 

I wish we had dealers like that here.

One of them comes partway there if you go through the internet manager, but most of them start off with the "everyone's paying MSRP" line of BS and if you're negotiating on-site they make thirty trips to the High Castle wasting hours out of your day.

 

Well, I spent some time finding a good dealer and salesman when I bought my 2013 Tacoma. Most of the dealers in my immediate area were utter assholes (internet and floor sales). I ended up talking to a guy at Ft. Worth Toyota named Jeff Raim. They had what I was looking for, 2WD Prerunner V6 with tow in two colors (Silver and dark Blue). I test drove the silver one then went in to talk with Jeff. He gave me a good discount and a reasonable amount for the vehicle I was trading in. The transaction was fast, no pressure, no bullshit. It helps he is senior enough that he doesn't have to run his deals past the sales mgr. So when I decided to punt and not buy the 3rd Gen Tacoma and move to the 4Runner, I called Jeff again. He had moved over to Family Toyota in Burelson, TX. I told him what I wanted and he got on the computer and said one was arriving in the port of Houston in the next day or so. We discussed the price on it and my trade over the next few minutes.

So the real work was back in 2013 finding a good salesperson. It's nice to have them on repeat business. They like it too.

If you are looking for a truck in the DFW area, Jeff is a good guy. Burelson is just south of Ft. Worth so it isn't very far unless of course you live in Rockwall or something. At the very least I would check prices with him before buying elsewhere.

 

This is a common strategy and good to hear it works for you, but I see it fail people just as often as it helps, they end up getting baited by an out of town dealer then go post a pissed off yelp review about how they drove 3 hours to get jerked around, or they get confused by the various ways dealers send quotes, some include all available incentives, some quote net, some include dealer and doc fees while some don't to make quote seem cheaper, on leases "$0 down" can mean VERY different things, etc etc etc.

As someone whos been in the business both on the dealer side and as a broker a much more efficient strategy is to specifically target the dealer you WANT to buy from and as local to you as possible. Now if you're neighborhood dealer sucks then it gets more complicated, but ideally you go to the BIGGEST dealer that is CLOSEST to you. Ironically that same dealer is also less likely to respond to your generic email that was sent out to a dozen dealers, they push too much volume to waste time chasing down leads like that, so its likely a dealer that would've done an even better price than you got is one of those that didn't respond at all.

Step 1: Establish market pricing using online resources (forums, truecar, check your Costco/usaa pricing), from this alone you should have a VERY good idea of what price is possible and what you should be willing to pay.

Step 2: if possible find the model/color you're specifically looking for and target that dealer directly. But at the same time don't let them know they have a unicorn if its the only one (if you want a RED Tacoma and they have the only one in the region do NOT tell them that's specifically what you're looking for, maybe mention a couple colors and make Red one of them)

Step 3: Use yelp, dealer website, LinkedIn and google to find out who the fleet managers are and contact them directly. Again targeting the biggest most local store you can find and email the fleet manager directly don't put in a random lead that goes to an internet guy or floor sales.

Step 4: Make your offer directly to the fleet manager and INCLUDE reasoning as to how you arrived at that price. If the fleet guy can tell you've made an educated offer based of off research they're going to take you much more seriously than throwing out a lowball # and seeing who comes closest. Having a smaller personal story honestly helps ("I'm looking for a 2017 Tacoma ___ and this is my 3rd one, can you believe it?!") Protip: You can use the business lingo and make an offer relative to invoice. This also cleans up the quotes you'll receive, instead of getting random #s all over the place with different options you get a clean offer of $X over/under invoice. This is how people in the actual business quote cars to each other so by doing that you'll also show you know exactly what you're doing. So if I was shopping for a 2WD Tacoma I'd cut out all the bullshit and just tell the fleet guy (Invoice less holdback you have a deal, or if it was a TRD PRO I'd say something like $2k over invoice). Because invoices change from car to car with differing options keeping it relative to invoice keeps it consistent across all your quotes.

There's a few reasons you want to deal with the biggest most local dealer. First off the bigger the dealer that higher their incentive is to push volume and capture market share. The reason you should try and keep it local first is because of a thing called "PMA", every dealer pays attention and is judged on PMA (Primary Market Area) which basically just means selling to customers in your local zip codes. If out of area dealers are consistently poaching from your PMA the manufacturer will notice and you'll end up with shittier allocations and dealer support. So there's incentive for a dealership to go deeper for a customer that is INSIDE their PMA, plus the dealer assumes they'll sell you parts and service down the line since you're local so again more incentive to go deeper for locals. But again if you live in a small town with few local dealers you may be forced to go out of town, this really only applies to big cities with multiple dealers.

When I help friends buy cars there's a dealer group fairly close to me that I KNOW will beat any quote in the region by $500+, I made friends with their fleet guy years ago and all it takes now is a simple text and I'll get a quote lower than an email blasted to dozens of dealers. That same blast email would also never make it to this guy, but if you googled around and search LinkdIn you'll find his direct contact info

But this isn't advice really for you, what you're already doing seems to work for you and your region so by all means I'm not telling you to change. This is general advice for anyone else reading because I see people all the time TRY to do the whole email blast every dealer in within hundreds miles and do the whole spreadsheet thing and they usually just end up more confused than ever, wasted time, and end up going to the wrong dealer and paying what a normal Costco or USAA member would have anyways with far less effort.

Final tip: Going back and forth several or even dozens of times with the dealer you're trying to buy from can be a GOOD thing, the more time and emails they've invested into you the more likely they are to go deeper to keep the business, sort of like using the sunk cost fallacy agaisn't them lol.

 

Good advice, I do have a couple comments. I agree with much of what you say, especially the reminder that success with this technique can vary by region and other factors.

First is that I think discussing a relative-to-invoice price leaves you open the variable of dealer fees and complicates the numbers. One dealer nearby has no doc fees, it's price plus TTL. Another nearby dealer has a $600 doc fee, so it's price plus $600 plus TTL. I prefer to ensure *all* that stuff is baked into the number I am quoted, so I work on an Out-the-door or Drive-Out basis. Makes it incredibly simple and avoids any surprises. The dealers quoted me a single drive away figure.

Now that doesn't mean a dealer can't lie to get me in the door and come up with an excuse for a new OTD figure, but that is a risk you take with a distant dealer. I've also had a dealer tell me "come on in, we'll work out a good deal" and then waste my time. I've had sales floor staff ignore what I say and push what they have on the lot. I'd rather take a shot with the email blast and then go back to the old-fashioned method if it doesn't work out.

In my case, everyone but one was within an hour and the furthest was only ninety minutes away. The joys of being in a major metro area such as Atlanta. As it was, the dealer I left out of the mass email who is four miles away came close enough to my quotes that I did the deal there.

It's also possible nobody wants to play ball. That's another risk.

FWIW, the spreadsheet was just for my own edification. I'm an OCD analytic that does financial models fairly often. People need to use the tools they can understand, so I don't necessarily recommend it for everyone. Out-the-Door all-in pricing is pretty easy to grasp.

BTW, kudos on using sunk cost appropriately. *applause*

 

That's actually a really good point you bring up about differing dealer fees. I forget outside of my state those can get ridiculous. I'm in CA and doc fees are standardized to only $80, can't charge more can't charge less, DMV fees are also standardized and taxes go by where you live not where you buy. So in CA your fees will be the same no matter where you go which is why I recommend doing relative to invoice, but I guess I should amend that to say "get quotes relative to invoice AND ask for OTD #" then you'd have both

So yeah not all states have it that easy so you're right have to be careful with those dealer fees as it can cause the exact confusion I was giving advice to avoid. Especially if you live near a border and are getting quotes from across state lines, if the dealer across the border has an $80 doc fee and the dealer on your side has $600 doc fee but they both quote invoice that'll obviously end up very different OTD. I didn't think of this because people in CA rarely buy out of state, its usually the other way around (I used to ship cars to Arizona regularly) so it didn't even occur to me.

Before you mentioned you're an analyst I was going to ask what type of engineer you were lol

 

I am in SE Iowa. The MSRP difference between a '16 and a '17 for exactly the same truck is $460.

 

Mine as well go 17 at that point..

 

Indeed. Especially since any '16 becomes a year-old truck the moment it leaves the lot, and low mileage won't make up for the inherently lower value simply due to model year.

 

depending on the trim level, it's likely not "exactly the same truck". TRD models got the power-sliding rear window in 17.