What are you paying for your 2021 Tacoma? (price thread)

Honestly I don’t want to put it back to stock. I don’t have any other stock parts so that would mean I would have to find a stock front bumper stock, rear bumper stock suspension lol. It would take a lot of time and effort to do that and I work too much to want to do that. i’m hoping the dealership I go to on Saturday will give me a good price for my truck lol. I know I might end up a little better putting it back to stock but I just don’t have the time or the parts. If I can get a good price for it, I would rather trade it in at the dealership because the tax break would be pretty good. Instead of paying taxes on a $40,000 truck, I would be paying taxes on a $23,000 truck which is a big difference especially since Massachusetts is 6.5%

 

you would think a dealership would want a modded truck to sell. I bet it would ASAP lol.

 

Carvanna offered me $25k for my 2013 Taco which I paid $26,600 back in 10/12 lol. Now that was a over the internet appraisal w/o a real time inspection of course. And my truck was in excellent condition with....30k miles. Had a few minor mods. Too good to be true? Idk....but my local dealer went with $22k plus the tax break on the trade was effectively a$23,500 trade in. A no brainer in my book which ended with me getting the exact new Taco I wanted for about $8000 all in. Would have kept the 2013 as she was very good to me with not one issue over the yrs but was a stick and left leg issues forced me to a auto.

 

Yea $1,100 tax diff. If you got rid of the stock parts then wouldn’t make sense to do.

 

I don’t get why you didn’t just sell to Carvana. Totally true and easy(see the Carvana thread). Unless you don’t care about the $1500....which is possible and I don’t blame you if you don’t.

 

A little off subject:

I know there are differences in what Toyota offers to various regions but I was surprised when I checked out a populous zip in the Atlanta suburbs vs. my central Maine zip on the Toyota configurator page.

Georgia has a tire "upgrade" as well a TRD pro wheel/tire package that isn't an option in ME, a different design hard tonneau ($400 more), touch keypad entry and dual rear seat USB chargers.

Interesting how much more expensive port options are as well.
All weather floor mats (no door sill protectors):
Maine: $169
Georgia: $329

Bed lights:
Maine: $149
Georgia: $309

Mud guards:
Maine: $129
Georgia: $199

 

Fair question on the $1500. But at this point in my life $$$ isn't the bottom line anymore. I got a handful of other on-line appraisals that went 16-23k so I knew the ballpark of worth and before them I didn't imagine $20+ was a option so 22 plus the $1,500 tax bonus was still gtg for me. And theCarvana quote still worked for me as the print out was verifiable proof of an offer I showed the dealer. Still having trouble that my 8 1/2 yr old truck, according to Carvana would sell for more than what I purchased it for!

 

That it has 30k on the clock is amazing and would imagine that is a big reason for their offer.

The number I want to hear from/accept from the dealer on my '17 SR5 DCLB is 28k. If I get that I'll happily eat the difference the ~$500 difference between private sale & trade-in tax credit. Yes, it would be nice to keep/put towards new one but if I don't have to deal with tire kickers, knit pickers and dealing with payment & paperwork, I'll "pay" the $500 not to. Anything less than a 28 offer I'll likely privately sale. But I'll cross that bridge once the actual build date has passed/I have an active VIN.

Side note: obviously the dealer will be making money on both a trade-in & sale of new truck but this dealership gave my wife 3k over KBB for her '14 Rav limited back in Feb.

 

My super white Tacoma TRD Pro is scheduled to be built on 6/21. Pretty excited!! I am paying MSRP for it.

 

Where did you buy your TRD Pro?

 

Welcome to tacoma world. I am also waiting on my 2021 trd pro super white to get here on the 23rd. Managed to get it for MSRP, and I opted for a manual, what did you get?

 

I am on the Iowa side of the Quad Cities. $50k with the accessories that I had added.

 

I saw you posted a couple times so I'll try to cover it all in just this one quote.

1) You can and should apply through Bank of America before you have the official VIN number. This was my process just last week - I applied for an auto loan without a VIN number and with a conservative loan amount that was greater than I knew I would need. I was approved within 30 mins online with an interest rate of 2.44. Two days later Bank of America called me to finish my application and right before they called me the dealership had sent me the official VIN number. I gave the lady the VIN number and readjusted the amount I thought I would like to finance(went up by $2k just to be safe), she entered that into her system and said my new interest rate was 2.14. So, definitely apply for the loan through Bank of America before you get the actual VIN but don't apply for it more than 30 days before your truck arrives because BofA approvals only last 30 days before you have to reapply.

2) There is a difference in credit scores. The score you most often see when you pull your own credit is your FICO Score 8. What you want is your FICO Auto Score 8. My FICO Score 8 and FICO Auto Score 8 differed by 8 points, that's nothing serious but if you're telling the dealership what your score is, you want to tell them your FICO Auto Score 8. You can get your FICO Score 8, FICO Auto Score 8, and FICO Auto Score 2 from Experian for $4.95.

3) When I went into the dealership I told them I had a loan at 2.14% and that's what I would be going with unless they could beat 2%. Lo and behold, one of the finance mangers walked up to me during my negotiations with sales and said, "I have one bank that I might be able to get you 1.78 or 1.99 from if you want. I'll have to run your credit and put a hard inquiry on it but if you want me to see if I can get you that rate I will." I told him it was fine with me if he tried and he did, my interest rate is 1.99% now through Wells Fargo Auto Financing.

4) Don't be worried about getting multiple pulls on your credit for auto loans. If you get multiple pulls on your credit within a 14 day span(I believe it's 14 days) they WILL all show up on your credit report but they will only effect your score as if there was only one pull. This law was changed to allow consumers to shop around for interest rates and not get destroyed on their credit score.

5) If you don't get pre-approved for an auto loan and just wait to see what rate you can get at the dealership, ask them what their buy rate is on your loan. What this means is banks will tell a dealership that they will finance a vehicle for someone at xx% interest but that the dealership is welcome to mark up the rate if they want to. So a bank could approve you for 3% through the dealership but the dealership might tell you that you were approved for 4.5%. If this is the case, ask them what their by rate is on your loan and ask them to show you the approval from the bank.

6) If a dealership tries to give you a loan with a rate at ~5.5% or greater and your credit score is above 700 I would ask questions. That rate is getting into the Nonprime territory for new car auto loans. Still not Subprime but it's getting up there.

7) Your history of debt, amount of debt, timeliness paying your debt, etc is baked into your credit score. A bank doesn't asses your credit by pulling your score then seeing how long you've had debt, the credit score exists to be a comprehensive metric. Your credit score would reflect your lack of debt history. Things that effect the rate you get is dependent upon your credit score, your income, your term, amount financed, the institution your finance through, etc. Your credit score is one component but don't sweat how long or how much debt you've had, your credit score reflects that. You might not be getting a good rate due to any of the other aforementioned criterion.

 

That's true to some extent, I triggered a red flag when I financed 2 cars within a single week. They ran my credit, which I assume my FICO 8 auto should be around 780-800. Then a while later, the finance guy told me that my application's flagged because I have more than 3 auto loans account open, I told them I'm in the process of selling 1 of the vehicles. So the finance guy called the bank and had them manually approve the application explaining my situation. Not a big deal in the end, but I think banks have some automated red flags that trigger manual reviews, and many outstanding auto loans is probably one of them.

 

That's a smokin deal....Good job

 

Looks like all the cases of potential auto loans under experian for me are above 700s so I should be in the clear even though I don't have a history of any. So in summary, I should be able to get a good rate even with it being my first event. Thanks for all the info.

 

I read your post and had to sign up for this forum. Thank you for all the great information.
I'm in the process of shopping for a Tacoma in So Cal.
I'm going to be trading in my 2005 Xterra Off Road edition. With only 118k miles and in better than average condition I'm hoping it'll knock off an extra 3 to 4 grand. Although I've read in other posts that because the demand is so great for these trucks the dealerships aren't very open to negotiating. Do you have any information or tips about trade ins?

 

I think you should. My first auto loan was at the age of 23, I was still in college so I didn't have to start paying my student loans yet(ie.no history of open debt) and I had 1 credit card to my name with a limit of $1,000 that I barely used. At that time interest rates were higher than they are now. I got pre-approved from my credit union for 3.1%(I think, it was definitely under 4%) and when I went to the dealership they said that my interest rate through Toyota Financial was going to be 5%. I had never bought a car at this point and had very little idea what I was doing but I told the finance guy that I wasn't going to buy car for an interest rate over 3.1%. He said like the snake he was, "Let me go talk to my manager." Not surprisingly, he came back and said, "I worked with my manager and we can give you 2.9%". Dealerships are snakes, you're going to have the best idea of what rate you can get by getting pre-approved before going. I wouldn't shy away from getting multiple pre-approvals too if you feel like you need to. Just make sure your pre-approval applications are within a couple weeks of each other(might want to research how far apart they can be without hitting your credit report as multiple inquiries) and make sure your pre-approval won't expire before you close the deal on your new vehicle.

 

Dealerships aren't open to negotiating the price of the new vehicle right now, by and large. You should expect to pay MSRP or very close to it until this current market settles down. Personally, I wouldn't buy a vehicle for over MSRP but that's your judgement call.

Negotiating the price of a trade in is completely different. You should look at them as two separate transactions. You should also, MOST DEFINITELY, negotiate the price of your new vehicle first without even letting them know you have a trade in. If they ask if you have a trade in, say no. Once you have finalized the price of your new vehicle and you're content with the price, then tell them you actually do want to trade your vehicle in. The name of the game with dealerships is to give them as little information as possible. You'll get the hang of it when you start to feel the questions they ask, their questions are extremely info gathering type questions.

But to be more specific on your trade in:
Get a Kelly Blue Book value and be honest with yourself when you enter its current condition. Get its Edmunds value. Get its Carvana value. Get its Vroom value. Get its Carmax value. Get its Blackbook value(you can just search blackbook trade in value and you'll find a random dealership website show up that will, "Value your trade in" and their database will be Blackbook). Try to get has many estimates for the value of your vehicle as possible. This will give you a reasonable idea of what to expect.

The dealership will undoubtedly still try to lowball you but if you know the range of what your vehicle is worth then you know what's fair. For example, my truck's value was between $28k-31k. To no surprise the dealership offered me $28k and I immediately said, "That's not good enough." At this point the salesman raised his voice, interrupted me every time I tried to speak, told me he had been doing this for 10 years, told me how good of a deal $28k was, told me that $31k(what I wanted) was absurd, etc. etc. I never lost my cool, I let him finish then I would speak, I said to him "So I'm just an idiot?", I said to him "I'm not going to put myself in a financially disadvantageous position to buy this new truck", etc. He went to his boss and came back with $29k. I told him again that it wasn't good enough and he came back with $29.5k. The entire time I knew a fair range was anywhere between $28k-31k. I wanted the high end and they of course wanted the low end, so in my mind right in the middle was a fair comprise. I told him I would shake his hand and move on for $30k, he spouted some more bull shit and said he could go get his boss but that his boss would say the same thing and I said, "I'll be here." His boss came over and we eventually settled on $29,750, I could've gotten $30k if I walked but coming up $1,750 and $250 over the middle on my end seemed reasonable to me.

CONCLUSION(finally): For your trade in, have a good idea of what your vehicle is worth before you go in. Don't let the dealership know that you have a trade in until you settle on the price of the new vehicle. Be ready and willing to go to war over the value of your trade in but don't lose your cool and maintain that eye contact. Dealership salesman try to intimidate, fast talk, and not let you talk to close their deals. Do not be intimidated, let them fast talk until they have nothing left to say, and then calmly enter back into the convo as if everything they just said was a waste of their time and make them realize you aren't changing your mind until you get a fair deal. Most importantly, actually be willing to walk.

 

Does anyone know what the delivery time is for a Tacoma that is built in Austin, Texas? Build date is currently 6/21/21 and I'm wondering when I can expect to see it arrive in Iowa.