What's the chatter on the 2018's?

This guy knows wtf is going on

 

This is pretty much exactly how it was explained to me by the dealership I "ordered" my TRD Pro from. They gave me a far out expected delivery date since Toyota likely won't have the build I want (Cavalry Blue w/manual trans) until later in the year.

 

Respectfully, what you described is pretty much what I said, with a semantic difference. The dealership essentially asked Toyota if they would be building the truck you wanted and if so, "Can we have it?". Many of the options/accessories aren't installed at the plant at all so its irrelevant to this discussion (the port/dealer installed options I addressed earlier). If I remember correctly, a sold order is important because it proves to Toyota Corporate that there's a buyer in hand rather than a dealership trying to pad inventory.

The difference between Toyota and a true order is that Toyota commonly says “no” or “keep waiting” if the dealer has exceeded their allocations or if you’ve asked for a configuration they won’t allow. In your case you got lucky with a two week wait before an accepted allocation; I had the same experience. Many, many more waited much longer. The big three offer much more range since they’re true “orders” (again in quotes since it’s semantics). Want a Colorado with no rear seats? They’ll send it to the dealer that way, assuming there's no extra fabrication to be done. Toyota can be even more limited by the dealer regions themselves. Want a 4Runner with KDSS in Gulf States? Nope, you'd have to go someplace else entirely (I've stopped keeping up with 4Runners since I sold mine, but this was the case a few years ago).

OA

 

I got mine from Kendall in Bend, got a better price than the dealers in Portland and no BS!

 

Great insight Omar! I agree, we were saying the same thing, just from different viewpoints. To the consumer, it surely appears to be a custom order, but in reality the dealer is just raising their hand in the classroom waiting to be called upon.

I’m glad to hear the “sold” order gives some kind of priority!

 

The dealer is allocated only so many vehicles for the month. My dealer only had one Tacoma allocated to them. When they placed the order for the truck it's not a "custom" build. My Tacoma is a configuration that anyone can order and is available on their vehicle order guide. The model I selected was a '18 TRD Sport short box, 6 speed manual in Barcelona red. This configuration automatically gets TSS-P, auto high beam, leather, dual climate control, nav, q charging and power sliding rear window. Once the dealer places your order you have to wait approx. two weeks for Toyota to confirm a production date. My production date is Nov 20th and is being built in Texas.

 

If Toyota let you custom build Trucks. Then people would be buying Double Cab longboxs with manual transmissions or TRD Sports with the rear lockers.

 

When the dealer places an order for a Tacoma they can put it through as a retail sale or a dealer sale. When Toyota sees a retail sale the chances of you getting the truck increase. Some dealers put through orders just to have vehicles sit on the lot.

 

Not a troll. True story. They have released it to dealers. And I didn’t quote a price, I quoted an increase. Those are two different things.

 

I checked today and my dealership has no pricing information.

 

Maybe they didn’t open their
Email titled:

Product & Price Change for Select 2018MY Vehicles—Prius Liftback, Sienna, Tacoma

From their region supply manager this morning.

 

I'll check tomorrow morning.

 

Curious, where do you work?

 

Thanks everyone for the insight.

Is there any logic to sticking with the dealer who Toyota perceives to have more sales volume--that is, the dealer who tells me they have the biggest number of allocated 2018 Tacomas in the pipeline? Two dealers told me they have two coming, and one said they have ten coming.

 

You mean SR5 access cab short beds with the v6/6MT and lockers, crank windows, just AC, stripper 4x4 models?

 

Would also like to know this!

 

The dealer who only has two coming may not move on pricing and sell for MSR. He may also be thinking if he sells more then more trucks will be allocated to him in the future so he could be very competitive. Best thing to do is decide what Tacoma model you want and play one against the other. Obvoiusly this isnt going to work until they have pricing information.

 

Pricing and packaging information was released on another thread.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/2018-official-packaging-and-pricing-released.516648/

 

From the perspective of general business principles, there is logic in finding the volume dealership. Most places are either a low-volume, high margin dealer or a high volume, low margin dealer. I have one of each within 25 miles of me. Right now, one of them has three Tacomas on the lot and the other has 15.

Generally speaking, the low-volume / high margin place is going to be less willing to work on the price because they know they will not sell as many Tacomas therefore they need to make as much profit on each unit as they can. The high volume / low margin place is going to be more willing to drop the price and take less profit because they know they have many more tacomas on the lot to sell and will make a profit on each one of those.

If I were going to "order" A truck, I would go to the high volume dealership because a) they will probably do better on price and b) they have a better chance of getting the specific configuration allocated to them.

 

and along with everyone else, there is no such thing as a custom order.

Toyota builds vehicles by a pre-determined order. if anyone has played with dealer daily (general sales manager usually or if you are a well connected customer), all you are doing is putting in a request for a certain configuration. now when I ordered my 2014 4runner and 2016 Tacoma, the general sales manager pulled up dealer daily and let me go thru the option/package screens to pick exactly what I wanted. once you have selected what you want the dealer submits the request to allocation and in 1-3 days its either approved by the regional port or rejected, then you go forward from that.

who ever tells you that you can custom order a Toyota vehicle is probably just going along with you since the average consumer is use to how the big 3 order vehicles which you can actually custom order exactly what you want.