So you want to buy a Tacoma?

@FadedComa

 

Subaru dealers are the worst

 

@Justanotherhemi

 

Adam read this now

 

@Bocsy44

This thread has nothing to do with running over tow trucks in reverse while wearing ugg boots in an attempt to save a kitten......but its a good read.

 

oh shit I actually read this thread a long time ago hahahaha

 

I already emailed 92 dealers in his area with his real email address.

 

@ramonortiz55

I'm sort of using this strategy to try and purchase a used 4runner. When is it a good time to tell them you have a vehicle to trade in?

 

After you have an agreed apon out the door price.

 

Be advised, you likely won't get anywhere near what you want for your trade. NADA trade values suck.

 

Yeah I figure that. As long as I can get what I owe I’d be okay. So we will see I guess.

 

I'd say nissan/kia dealerships are the worst. Takes a special type of person to pitch a sale and persuade the purchase of a terrible cheap car.

 

When my wife wanted a Kia Soul when her Lexus lease was up I almost choked on my coffee . I had bad impressions of the brand and people who drove them so I dug to make sure that’s what she wanted . When I went to test drive the car , the salesman was super chill and just handed me the keys for a couple hours .

The build quality on my wife’s Kia is the best in any vehicle we have bought in the last 15 years. Perfect panel gaps, no rattles , loaded with features and I wrote a check for it for 17k. The local Kia dealership offers a lifetime power train warranty on top of the manufacturer 100k 10years. I have nothing negative to say about my one and only experience with a Kia dealership.

 

We bought a Kia Soul 3 years ago for our daughter and my wife liked it and when she was due a new car she wanted the turbo Sportage. Had zero issues with either vehicle and I can tell you the soul can take an accident or few... #daughtercrashes

 

I just ran a similar version of this method last week and it worked out pretty good. not nearly as many but I emailed close to 60 dealers in total. It really did help me negotiate my way to a great price. Picked up a 2019 4x4 DCSB SR5 for $35k OTD​

 

Must be why my local Toyota dealership which is also my Subaru dealership where I got my Outback from is being a pain right now to get pricing on a Tacoma.

I'm using this method, I only contacted my Subie/Toyota stealership and the one I bought my 2012 using my real email, the other 50 dealerships got my temporary email account + their own phone numbers if required. It's already working too as I got a price that's more than I expected off the bat. I'm curious to see what my pre-TTL and OTD end up being.

 

Hey all, this is my first post on this forum. I just wanted to say thank you to the OP and all those who replied with additional tips. I used all of the information to purchase a 2020 TRD Sport DCSB AT with the Technology Package for 33k -- 6,100 under MSRP. That's ~15% off of MSRP. I just wanted to let everyone know that this method works. I was skeptical, thinking that dealers must be onto this strategy. I kept waiting for one of them to call me out and tell me to piss off but it never happened. I'm here to share what worked and add my own tips for the next person.

What I didn't see mentioned in this thread is that the key to getting a killer deal is putting out enough emails to find the right dealers who are trying to hit their sales incentives/quota for the month. Without this, you will never get a dealer to sell you a vehicle for under cost. This means casting a wide net and starting 3-5 days before the end of the month when the pressure is on to hit those quotas. In retrospect, I got lucky and stumbled into this.

I contacted 60 dealers within a 300 mile range. Most of them came back with regular discounts between 1-5% off MSRP but one dealer came back with an insane 15% off. I didn't like the truck that much (it had hood graphics option) but I knew it was the golden ticket to leveraging the rest of the dealers. I responded to the other dealers with the offer. It was funny to watch them all scrambling, "Did you say 33k?! Does that include XYZ? Can you send me written proof for my manager please?". Having written proof of a legit offer from one dealer was crucial to leveraging the other dealers. I literally forwarded the email communication to 30 of them. Most responded with, "Unfortunately, I'm not able to beat that deal. Have a nice day." A couple responded with, "You are making money on that deal. Don't walk, RUN there now". But 2 other dealers actually matched the price (or were close, within 1K). I ended up buying at one of these dealers, getting the 15% off MSRP deal but on a truck I actually wanted.

Once I was signing paperwork and I could tell they weren't going to try anything shady, I told the sales associate that I knew they were losing money and asked them why would they sell the truck for that price? She confirmed my assumption. She told me their invoice was around 36K and that they were losing 3k on the deal but if they hit their quota they will get bonuses that make up for it. She used to work at a dealership that fixed their prices and would never match another offer just to hit a quota. She said she likes working at this one much more because they're all about moving trucks. Again, this confirms that casting a wide net is essential. You've got to hit enough dealers to find the ones that will lose money on trucks to hit quotas.

My advice to anyone else looking to employ this strategy:
- Read this whole thread and take notes on how to execute it. Keep a detailed spreadsheet as described on pages 1 and 4.
- Cast a wide net. Worst case if you don't have anyone to drive you, you can spend $150 on a rental car to drive 5 hours. It's worth it.
- Nail down the model you want but be flexible on packages/options/colors. I was able to leverage a deal by getting my initial offer on a truck with options I didn't want.
- Start 3-5 days before the end of the month. Give yourself several hours a day to go through emails. It will get hairy.
- EDIT: VIN decoder massively helpful for cataloging vehicle packages/options: https://www.toyota.com/owners/my-vehicle/vehicle-specification

I hope this helps somebody else. Happy hunting!

 

Good advice, this is what my Dad taught me to do when I bought my first new car.

I would add, to speed the process up and shorten your list of potential sellers, stick to dealers that move a lot of cars and are in larger market areas. It sounds counter productive because you assume larger dealers don't need to come down to your terms to make sales, but those dealers are in the best position to make a numbers sale to keep units moving and receive incentives from the manufacturer.

Also, even after going through this process to find the lowest offer possible, don't think that you can't further chip down the price. Even when a dealer is claiming to be at wholesale or losing money, know they will never throw you an offer that will actually net them a loss. Especially over the phone/email. They could be utilizing an outdated incentive to create profit. The actual wholesale on these trucks is much lower for some dealers than you might think and a dealer in a big market can advertise prices 5-6K below sticker while smaller markets won't negotiate beyond 2K. Once you've secured the lowest offer, I would handle further bartering in-person. Salesmen are quick to say no over the phone or email but if you are there they know they are close to an agreement. Plan to spend some hours, if not the better part of a day there if you plan to negotiate them down even further. They want to use hype and excitement and time against you to get you to apply pen to paper ASAP. Let them know you have time and will walk if the price isn't right.

 

Here's bumping an old thread here for a question about the stock numbers. Looking at a 2020 sticker, I see a line in the upper left that shows "YR/MDL: 2020/7148 A". Here's a photo:



But then on the upper left, it shows another line that says "Stock # M129230" (photo below).



So which one is the actual stock number? M129230 is the last 7 digits of the VIN number. The 7148 A part is more than just 4 digits. There's a also a couple spaces and then a letter 'A'.

 

Use the top sticker.

Thats the factory information

the other sticker is just dealer add ons.

Keep that info handy just in case.