New Tacoma fees

I have emails out to 7 now, but will expand the search.

Thanks,
Mike

 

The old "stealer" fee strikes again. As others have advised, tell them you'll consider a purchase from them if they discount the truck by a certain amount that is MORE than their supposed non-negotiable charges. I recall a dealer in south FL telling me that I'd have to pay:

-$500 Processing Fee

-$100 Dealer prep

-$17.31 Dealers Business License Tax

So I told the sales guy that I’d be charging the dealership the following additional fees if they charged me fees:

-$250 Customer Premiere Focus Fee

-$100 Internet Search Optimization Fee

-$150 DMV Processing Tax Levy

-$25 Sales Interaction Communication Tax

They said that they'd discount the truck by $1000, and about that time I found a used Tacoma to buy, thereby not having to deal with their jackassery. You must be able to walk out.

 

Agree. Appreciate the reply.
Mike

 

Do not use MSRP to negotiate from period! Do some research and find out what factory invoice is on the vehicle you are interested in. Keep in mind that the dealer does not pay this. There are factory to dealer incentives, hold back and other incentives the dealer gets for selling you a car. There is a lot of info on the web about this. Dealers will tell you that the factory invoice is what they pay. Call BS on that. Your best bet is to do a lot of research and reach out to as many dealerships as you can. Search dealers four or five states away even if you never intend on buying out of state. Know exactly the vehicle you want and if they have a vehicle you want, email their internet sales department. This includes your local dealerships. Never ever walk into a dealer cold. You will almost always get a better deal if you start with a dealers internet sales department. Once you know exactly what you want get as many quotes as you can get and make sure it is in writing. Email is good. The quotes need to include everything ie all the fees etc. Generally this is the “out the door” price. Then print everything out and put it in a folder. Then go down to your local dealer and see if they can beat your lowest quote. It is important that you are looking at the same vehicle(ie all the same features or relatively close) See how close they will get but keep in mind if you would have to spend money on travel to pick up a vehicle. Say it would cost you$500 to pick up a vehicle in travel costs, if you local dealer gets within $500 it’s probably best to buy from them. (Unless they pissed you off of course). If they won’t get close to your lowest, then move onto the next closest deale that has the veichle you want in stock. Don’t worry to much about fees. Every dealer has BS fees that they use to make money. Just work from the lowest out the door quote and see if they will beat or come close to it. Keep in mind that if you buy a car out of state, you will likely pay tax in your state. Do some reasearch though to find out how it works in your state.

Keep in mind that when you buy a car the time of the month is important. Always wait till the end of a month and some months are better than others. The end of the year is generally one of the best. The way dealer incentives work is the dealer gets a certain amount of money from Toyota for each Toyota they sell (hold back and other individual vehicle incentives) and if they sell a certain amount of vehicles in a month. If they don’t meet the monthly sales goal then they get nothing. Most dealerships survive off these factory incentives. This is why you will almost always get the best deal at the end of he month. The best time to buy is two or three days before the end of the month. But you need to be prepared to pull the trigger and get the paperwork done before the month ends. Go into a negotiation ready to buy.
Another advantage for starting a negotiaon two or three days before the end of the month is the walk away or a delay tactic. If they won’t get down low enough walk away or say you need to think about it for a day. If they are short on their monthly sales goal they will call you back in. The monthly incentives are so important for some dealers, they are willing to loose money on individual vehicles to make sure they get it.

As has already been said, negotiate the cash price, then the trade in and then the financing. They will always try and use the three together and make it seem like your getting a great deal. If you can get outside financing that’s all the better. Then you can truly negotiate for a cash price. Never ever let them negotiate from a monthly payment standpoint! They will do all kinds of crazy math to try and trick you.

You need to go into the negotiation from an adversarial prospective. They are not your friend. You want to pay less and they want to make money off of you. That being said don’t be a jerk. Dealers still need to make money they are a business after all.

If you are into podcasts, there is a good one on car sales. This American Life did a story on a month at a New Jersey Jeep Dealer. It is informative and entertaining. Search for it, episode 129.

 

Thanks. Great advice.

Mike

 

Being cheap is such a bad trait to have.

 

Not everybody has access to USAA, local credit unions are also a good source of funds.

 

Agree.

But frugal or conservative (as we are trying to assist @99Mike with in this thread) is far from being cheap.

Not doing the best you can with the resources one has is why so many folks are drowning in the cesspool of consumer debt.

 

Thanks to everyone who replied. I got a lot of great advice. I will use what I learned, move forward and work towards getting a fantastic deal. Hopefully, i will be posting new pictures of a new Tacoma shortly.

Mike

 

In my opinion....this approach works better without the trade in the deal. Always treat the purchase $$ and the trade amount as two separate deals. Trade-in values are a moving target.

Get some quotes in writing...then shop all dealers with the lowest quote. Match, do better or move on to the next dealer. Make sure you're comparing apples to apples when asking the dealer to match $$. Even though your shopping a specific model/trim, there can be add-ons from the dealer that impact OTD price. Floormats, running boards, tube steps, tonneau covers, etc. DO NOT mention you have your own financing until you agree on $$. Dealers get kickback from lenders on financing and are more likely to move on price if they think they'll be carrying the loan.

 

Does 2018 TRD DCLB AT off road premium + tech package for $38,300 out the door in Alabama sound like a decent deal?
Didn't really even want the moon roof because of noise and chance of leaking, but cheapest I could find without it was ~$40K lol.

 

Thanks,

Mike

 

Going to be a long one:
Ok ok, I have dealt with many dealerships (owned 9 different vehicles in the past 6 years) and know people that works in em. There are mainly two prices they throw around: distributor and manufacture (MSRP). The distributor will take into account the local market value, fees such as delivery, and add-ons they put in it. The MSRP is usually only 500-1000 more than invoice so dealer will most likely show you distributor (you can ask which one they are showing you). On top of that, they will ask for higher than distributor on brand new vehicles. The incentives dealerships have will either be based on how much total profit they brought in or how many cars they sold; sometimes both. If you have a trade in, it will work better for you.

Just purchased my 2018 tacoma last week; prior to going in, I searched what my local area market looked like for both the trade-in and the new vehicle. For 2018 TRD Offroad, it was between 38k-42k in my area. There was only 1 quicksand TRD Offroad w/ tow package in 100 mi radius so I already new which dealership to go to so I just went to the different ones to feel for the market (don't have to stay long, just ask around what their price is). Went into the dealership, they surrounded me like sharks, but I already made an appointment with a guy on the phone. He was busy so he handed me to this guy he was training (fairly new, but normally newer guys are harder to haggle with since they want bigger commission). They automatically assume you will be trading in if you pull up driving a vehicle, which is fine. I looked around like I was still debating which one to get for about 30 mins, saw the vehicle I want with and started the mind games. They wanted 42k for it with them showing me distributors price (39,100. they added side mirror protection film, door hand protection film, stainless steel exhaust tip, running boards, and privacy glass). He asked how much am I looking for to spend a month and I told him I am not to worried about monthly prices, but want to talk numbers on the total price.

Sat down, went back and forth on pricing (I got a bit annoyed cause the dude was slow with math). After an hour I told him "listen, I don't want to be here all day and I have other dealerships I have talked too; here are my keys to my trade-in and have your guy appraise it while we talk". He did just that and thankfully the guy appraising came back before I was about to offer to pay distributor's price. He came back with 10k since my lock and windows don't work properly (trade-in value for everything working was 12k so it wasn't a bad deal). After he informed me of the trade-in value, I told him I will pay what the distributor is asking since it will look good in records book, but I want to negotiate on the trade-in. They agreed. Walked out of the dealer:
-39,100 (distributor price with all the add-ons)
-they paid 14.5k for my trade-in (from 10k)
-Got free front window tints (the back already had privacy glass)
-half off on Xpel clear film for the whole front end and installation

After we agreed on all that, I had a pre-approved loan. What most people don't know is that if you go thru dealership financing, the dealer gets a small percentage of the loan amount from banks (which is why it is normally higher). However, with the approved loan, I printed out the terms and told them to contact all the banks they are connected with and beat this bank (it won't hurt your credit score if you do everything within 2 weeks) since big banks are always looking for new customers so they go into a bid war. They, were able to give me a whole percent lower than my pre-approved loan which I though was really low already. The bank that won was Chase which I heard really good customer reviews =].

Edit: I saw someone mentioning USAA. They provide really good loans, which was why I had my pre-approved loan thru them so the other banks can try to beat it =].

 

Didn’t read through the whole thread @99Mike but I’m guessing your working with Hendrick Toyota and that’s your problem. They survive off screwing young Soldiers.
Call Fred Anderson up in Sanford or Peterson down in Lumberton and I bet they won’t have those fees.

I just left Bragg after 7 years...f¥ckin hate Fayetteville.

I took my truck to Hendrick once for warranty work in 2011. They left it unlocked on the back lot and it was ransacked. Told me it wasn’t there problem...

 

Bought my truck from Peterson in Lumberton. $1000 below invoice and 0% financing. No fees that were listed in paperwork anyway. Thought I got a pretty good deal.

Thanks for the reply,

Mike

 

Thanks for the info.

Mike

 

Try Cars.com, put in a zip code 100 miles away. Than do your search for the Tacoma you want. That’s what I did....saved over $6K. My closest dealer does negotiate...so no sale. Everything is negotiable, just don’t go to a dealer for the final haggle until you have done must of your work on line, In life, it’s not what you is owed to you, it’s what you negotiate.

Good Luck....and go for a 6 speed

 

Local dealer wouldn’t negotiate....so no sale. Now that makes sense.

 

I was looking at a 2017 that I wanted to buy but it had $1500 dealer add ons that I didn't want. Salesman said they couldn't take them off. I said "bye" he said we have a new 2018 coming in two weeks that we won't put the add ons, on if you want it. I said ok. When the truck came in it had the same "stuff" on it that the 2017 had. We had already agreed on a price so I got the add ons anyway. Paint protection, scotch guard, nitrogen in the tires, (joke at best) and the cheap $309 all wether floor mats. I also negotiated the "doc" fees, another rip off. They can't change the "doc" fees but they can give you a discount else where. There is nothing a salesman hates worse than a buyer that has done his or her homework.

 

This. Lots of folks also forget to discuss Toyota's 2% holdback during negotiations. Salespeople HATE when you talk about it.

https://www.autocheatsheet.com/new-car/dealer-holdback.html