Purchase from dealer lot or order new Tacoma?

Hey what’s going on everyone. Currently living abroad and headed back to the states in May/June timeframe. I’m looking to purchase a new Tacoma (super white or magnetic gray OR 6MT) around May/June and I am debating on whether to shop around online at local inventory or “ordering” one through the Toyota website but I’m not entirely familiar with the order process.
Is there still time to negotiate the price once I order a Tacoma and it shows up to a local dealership or am I stuck paying the price shown on the website?
Shopping around at local dealers seems a little more time consuming (but could possibly save myself a little more money?) and I would have to wait to start looking almost right before moving back to the states.
Has anyone had much luck being able to bring the price down at all after ordering new?
Thanks, any input would be appreciated.

 

Good morning and welcome to the forum!! And, thank you for your Service!

I'm sure you'll get a lot of responses - and probably a flood of comments about "ordering" a Tacoma that generally comes down to semantics. Toyota allocates vehicles to regions which then sub-allocate them to dealerships based on sales, popular builds, etc. Dealerships have the ability to adjust installed options prior to build and to trade allocations with other dealerships. So, you generally ave to negotiate with dealerships for vehicles on lot or for them to sell you an allocated but not built vehicle (or traded allocation). There are lots of nuances in the process and much will depend on what the dealership is willing to do.

In any case, you will want to negotiate and lock in the price early - especially if you are looking for them to commit an allocation to you. If you look at the sticky thread above where people are listing what they are paying for 2021s, you'll get an idea what they are paying. Remember that the region and even the dealership where you buy will impact the price - some are more willing to negotiate than others.

Others will pitch in...just wanted to get the conversation started for you.

 

Generally this is a terrible time to buy a truck, so all normal rules might be out the window

 

Well said,

 

I live in NE Ohio. I had to order what I wanted, white trd offroad without all the lane departure bs. If you order something, there won't be much room to negotiate, at least not in my area. Also, they are giving these rigs away for free on leases currently, so the demand is high. Something else to keep in mind.

 

Check out the prices paid thread. There's some very good deals to be had on 2021's. 3-4K off.

 

That all depends on what region you're in and which dealer you're working with.

 

My suggestion is to wait until you are home.

Then prowl the dealer websites or lots for the truck you want. Either go to that dealer to make the buy or hit your local dealer to see if they can get that truck. Make your deal then.

Be ready to move quickly when you find your want.

If you will be financing, get your loan in order and approved before you make the deal.

 

I think the only thing that will make it more difficult to find is the MT part. When I search cars.com for a white or gray TRD OR 4x4 with MT and don't limit the distance from my zip code, I only get 40 results. Of course, inventory is still lower than normal, so by May/June there may be more available. That's a tough call. You might be able to save a little on price by buying something that's on the lot, but you'll have to be prepared to possibly take a road trip to get it. That's what I did when I got my 2020 back in April.

 

Every dealer i was at offered me a much better price on a new truck they had on the lot than doing an order....especially after they learned nothing on their lot met what i was looking for. One smaller dealer even said i was looking for an oddball truck vs what most buy today.

 

You are always going to pay more for a special order.

 

One advantage of "ordering" (@Devious6 was really accurate), is that you can specify exactly what you want, and the day it shows up, nobody has test driven it (slipped the guts out of the brand new clutch), and it's exactly what you want. And when there is a manual on the lot, it usually gets lots of test drives because they are so rare and a lot of people want to try it out. One of my local dealers had a manual that had almost 100 test drive miles on it. I know this, because I too took it for a test drive.

Buying a truck is a massive purchase, and a manual is rare (I think only 15% of Tacoma's have the manual). A lot of big dealers will negotiate on ordered trucks because they don't have to pay any flooring - it's a guaranteed sale, but as others have said, with the shortages there isn't much in the way of deals to be had. If you are getting $1500 off, thats a killer deal - but, honestly, what's $1,500 to get the exact truck you want totally untouched? Thats, what?, 3% - 5% on the total price of the truck.

 

Well, i wouldn't go as far to say you can order exactly what you want....you can as long as its available for that trim, or what options you required that the dealer can add on once receiving the truck. That was my case.

 

I was dead set I was going to order a truck, contacted my nearest dealership was going over timeline and what not. Found a used truck on Auto Trader, had every option I wanted, a year old, and OTD was going to be around 11-13k cheaper. Only thing I gave up was the color and power seats. Point is, keep looking around as it might save you some money.

 

Of course they're going to tell you that - that way you more apt to consider what is on the lot or in their allotment from Toyota.

Unfortunately Toyota configures vehicles in each region's dealer allotment by what has historically been good sellers without consideration of how many buyers may have acquiesced to accepting what's on the lot vs what they really wanted. In simpler terms, Toyota determines what we want to buy.

You CAN get what you want BUT it practically takes an Act of Congress to get it built AND you're really gonna have to fight to get a fair OTD price.

Been there, done that, and it's now sitting in my driveway.

 

Going on three months now since I ordered my new truck. Still no sign of it actually showing up at the dealer.
And by 'order', I mean buying one that was scheduled for manufacture that was close enough to what I actually wanted...
I'm not sure why Toyota gives a 'build your own' option on their website, when it doesn't appear to be possible to do that.
So I'll continue to wait, and monitor this forum...

 

OP, best of luck to you in your search. Much of what you will find depends on where you are located. In the Northeast, you might be luckier because while Tacomas are hot, they are not at quite the same demand level that they are in the West.

The whole product availability and order process changes quite frequently. I've seen this debate for years. There is one argument to be made that you will save more money if you buy off the lot because the dealer is sitting on that inventory. The counter argument is that the dealer will give you a better price if you order something from Toyota and take delivery from them because they have no carrying costs and are just making margin on inventory they don't have. It all depends.

Check out the thread here on what people are paying for their 2021 Tacomas ... you will get good insight into what the current market is like.

I do think the inventory shortage is opening up. For example, the dealer I purchased from in CT (I am in NY) now has 19 Tacomas on their lot:
https://www.torringtontoyota.com/new-vehicles/tacoma/

When I bought prior to the pandemic, they had only two.

EDIT: I might add that by the time you are ready to purchase (May / June, as you mentioned), I would expect product inventory levels to be close to normal. So there are likely to be more trucks out there on dealer lots and there is a greater chance you will find one closer to what you are looking for.

 

See my previous post. It IS possible to order exactly what you want, BUT it practically takes an Act of Congress to get Toyota USA to do so. Perhaps a high-volume (Tacoma) dealer has the pull, but you'll suffer when it comes to the OTD price.

 

I guess I the “ordering” a truck is pretty cool for those who like the feeling of having a truck made “special” for them and have the time to wait. However, it has been my experience that when I go to the dealer, I will have a spread sheet when the configuration that I want. I give to the dealer and he (or she for politically correct folk - although my guy happens to be a he) and generally with a week +/- they find a vehicle that is optioned according to my spread sheet.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems I have more bargaining power this way than having a vehicle special ordered.

 

More bargaining power? Maybe, maybe not. Depends on the dealer. After all, they know that they are giving you what YOU want so there's less incentive for them to really bargain.

As far as finding "a vehicle that is optioned according to my spread sheet" - possibly, but more likely it'll be close but not an exact match. Depending on the dealer "pull" and where that vehicle is in the production queue, they may be able to tweak to packages, color, options, etc.