Trouble locating new vehicles that are actually available at a dealer?

Getting frustrated that Toyota dealer website inventories are not being updated? Vehicles showing available are long gone? Calling and salesmen telling you it will be months before you even get to see a new vehicle?

Then use the public-facing Toyota API* to locate currently available vehicles at a dealer that are either on their way there or just arrived!

Interesting article detailing how a bright I.T. guy wrote code to search the available vehicles and located one and will soon be a happy truck owner! https://threatpost.com/pandemic-car-shopping-manufacturer-api/176740/

* Note: while this API is public via their website, and you would most likely win any frivolous lawsuit they tried to throw at you if they didn't like what you are doing, odds are likely you couldn't afford a protracted legal battle and Toyota could. Caveat Emptor.

 

My suggestion would be to go visit a dealer and let them know what you are looking for and let them look at the allocations they have coming. We recently had to replace a totaled vehicle, and the inventory on the dealer website was already sold. But, they can look at what they have coming. We wanted a RAV4 XLE, and they had a hybrid coming in that was a close enough match for what we wanted, so we put down a deposit on it. Took about 3 weeks. You'll be better off going in person so they know you are serious and can get a deposit on one.

The dealer inventory seems to get updated by the distributors, so my daughter's vehicle showed up as "In Transit" even though it was sold. The salesman said they had no control over it, they just show up on the site and then disappear as they actually sell them -- so they are there for a day or so, even though sold, then disappear.

 

Aren't people already looking at allocations and ordering trucks that are being built already? I seem to remember a thread on that. Once a VIN is assigned, the vehicle can be ordered. Also the build sheet can be modified if someone wants to add or delete features.

There's a thread on this somewhere here.

 

Good luck. I would look for a newer one used. The only other option is to order one...

 

Toyota is one of a few new car dealers who will advertise a car as available as soon as they get it allocated. Toyota will continue to list a vehicle as available even after it has been reserved with money down. They will remove it from their list only when the car is actually financed.

Certified pre-owned, keep your eye open. I got my 2021 with 4900 miles. Toyota told my dealer's sales and finance managers they could no longer roll in a Taco or 4Runner as their "free" ride.... As they don't have enough to sell.

Find your favorite salesperson and let them know what you want. If they are worth their weight, they WILL find what you want. You just gotta be patient for now.....

Good luck!

 

Yeah when I got mine tacomas were flying off the lot that it was the same price to have mine built the way I wanted from allocation as it was to just buy off the lot.

 

You can't really order a Toyota, you just have to find one that they built with the options you want (either in stock or as an allocation), and if you are wanting an odd combination -- good luck. You may have to settle for more or fewer of the options that you wanted, and then come on TW and complain about it to get it out of your system.

What I saw during my recent purchase experience is that the dealer knows the specific vehicles that have been allocated to them and generally when they will show up. You can put a deposit down and hold one, and that vehicle is yours when it shows up, or you can back out and lose your deposit. The vehicles will show up on the dealer website when they are "In Transit" to the dealer -- not when they are initially allocated. I had a VIN and a printout of the vehicle options for a couple of weeks before it showed up on their site. But whatever you see on their website, it's a good bet that someone already has a deposit on that vehicle. That's why I recommended going in to the dealer and seeing what they have allocated that isn't already sold. If nothing matches what you want, try another dealer, or ask when they get their next allocation so you can check back.

Now, this is in a Gulf States Toyota region, so dealers in other regions with different distributors may operate differently, but I think the main differences are the various regional "packages" that they put together.

 

I'm out of AZ and all I did was go on the toyota website do the build your own. I printed it out and brought it to them. There were some small things that they said the don't do or I needed this package to get but as a whole I picked it all out and the just had one of their allocated trucks built to my specs. Again maybe there were extenuating circumstances since there were very few trucks on the lot and thus was during covid but I bought it in March of 21.

 

So New information on this process if you are "techie" enough (read: "web coder") and care to have the best luck at finding a vehicle you want that meets your specs. Apparently the information in the first post has changed and that API endpoint no longer works, so here is info posted on Reddit back in Jan 2022 with updated info:
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Is anyone else having issues reaching the Toyota API?

This evening I started getting a 403 error when trying to GET the api.rti.toyota.com/marketplace-inventory/vehicles endpoint
I noticed the guest.dealer.toyota.com v-spec website is able to make requests to the same endpoint just fine (network tab in developer tools) but I can't seem to make the request manually. I also noticed that the sec-fetch-site header is set to same-site. Not sure if this is new.
I checked on a hotspot to see if my IP had been blocked but I got the same result.
Any ideas?
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Add "referer" : "https://guest.dealer.toyota.com/" to the headers and it would work again.
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This worked like a charm, thank you.

 

I found what I wanted and had to wait about one week for the truck to come it.