Did you order your Tacoma or buy from dealer stock?

I'm most definitely leaning towards ordering. I just don't like the fact of buying a $40K+ vehicle and having a bunch of others test driving it. Who knows how they drove it. Did they stand on the gas? Did they "drive it like they stole it"? Did they drive it in 4WD the whole time? Etc. A friend bought a new car that was a dealer trade. When it showed up and he was inspecting it, he scrolled through the trip meter and found the avg speed for the last trip was over 100mph. He walked.

To me, there's something about getting the vehicle that's basically right off the truck and being able to put all (but a dozen or so) miles on it myself.

Thoughts?

 

Your money. Do whatever you want.

 

QFT

 

Thoughts?

...sounds pretty ridiculous to me.

 

I was glad to have three of my config to pick from in dealer stock. I have never had an issue that I could ever trace or blame on folks test driving. Heck, I'm more than okay with used vehicles after a good inspection (by me).

My Taco had 8mi on it when I test drove it. I think one other person drove it?


But if you're worried about folks test driving, you would have to be worried about how they are treated by factory, delivery (!!!), and dealer porters. The delivery porters are on a clock to load and unload a vehicle as fast as possible through a few different transpo systems.

 

I bought mine off the lot. It had 13 miles on the odometer when I took delivery and a good chunk of that was my test drive.

 

Personally I drove mine like I stole it, then I bought it. I don't actually remember how many miles were on it ... bought new from dealer stock. 4 months 23 days short of 2 yrs and 27K miles of worry free use.

Does that help?

 

What part is ridiculous?

 

The worry about the truck being abused during test drives. The only reason to order IMO, is because you want an exact configuration and can’t find it on the lot. But that’s just me.

 

Have you ever seen how the guys who load them drive them. Or salesmen/mechanics while it is on the lot before being sold. My independent mechanic used to work at both the local Dodge and later Toyota dealership before going independent. He has some stories. Just because you order it doesn't mean it hasn't been driven irresponsibly.

Our local Toyota dealership was pretty small 14 years ago when I bought mine and had limited stock on hand. No 4X4's in stock. I test drove a Pre Runner then went inside and listed the options I wanted. They did a search and found one at another dealer about 200 miles away. They sent someone to get it and I came back 2 days later to buy it. While I didn't special order it, I'd not have changed a thing if I had. It did have about 200 miles on it, but with the 211,000 on it today that doesn't matter.

 

My dealer didn't have the one I want so they traded another dealer on the other side of the state. Ended up putting about 150 miles on it to get to my dealer. I didn't (still haven't) notice any issues from that drive.

 

I had mine allocated with the truck I wanted that was "in bound". Took a little less than a week. I had test drove a few other ones weeks before then.

 

You're probably overthinking things a bit.
If when you're shopping the dealer finds the configuration you want at another dealership 150 miles away, then there may be some risk that it could experience some extreme treatment on the way to your dealer.
If it's sitting on your dealership's lot and the odometer shows only 10-20 miles on it, then it's likely that only qualified Toyota employees have driven it. Chances of it having been BTS* are slim to non-existent.
If you think you can order a Tacoma built exactly to your configuration with no packages you don't want, good luck. It rarely happens and takes an act of Corporate to make it happen. Been there, done that, and I can tell you it requires persistence and patience and a cooperative dealer.

 

I ordered mine. It had like 3 miles on it once I got it.

 

I bought mine off the lot and it had like 25kms (15miles) on it. The dealership has a salesman come with you on new vehicle test drives. I am not worried about it.

 

I bought mine off the lot. It had 3 miles on it when I left on the test drive. Anything less than 50 or even 100 miles wouldn’t have bothered me.

OTOH I recently bought a new Motorcycle and made it clear that of the two the dealer had in-stock, I wanted the one with the fewest miles. The one I bought had 3 miles on it when I picked it up. Engine break-in, especially on a high-performance motorcycle engine (heat-cycling) is a real thing, much more so than on a Taco.

As long as the truck you want to buy doesn’t show any signs of abuse, you should be fine. Remember it has a warranty

 

Bought from dealer stock. Wrong color, but I dont think green was even an option for non-pros.

They didn't even have any new ones on the lot last time I was there and had only one used.

 

I’m the exact same way. It’s petty, but I’m not going to accept a vehicle with more than 15 miles on it (I think my Tacoma had 4 miles on it). If they don’t have one, another dealer does; or they will soon.

I look at it like this; if I got to Best Buy to buy a TV, I’m not going to pay full price for a TV someone took hone to watch the Super Bowl on knowing they would be returning it. Why would I do that with a $40,000 “TV”.

The dealerships and salesmen probably laugh about it and talk crap, but in the end, I don’t care what they think so long as I end up with the vehicle I want.

 

Hey dude!

 

Yo!