Repeat after me: Deal on the "Out The Door" price ONLY, and any trade-ins are a totally separate deal. When you have reached a deal on the new car, you write them a check for that price.
And if they try tossing "documentation" or "transportation" or "advertising" fees on after the fact, you politely ask them just what part of "Out The Door Price" they did not understand.
Before they make that offer they already know exactly what that car cost them to the penny, what their overhead expenses are, what they need to make on the deal, and they know how much it's going to cost to get your tags and title processed by the state. If they want to "charge those fees on paper", they can subtract them from the sales price and add them as a separate line item - as long as the bottom-line "Out The Door Price" remains the same.
And if they persist in trying to roll you for a few hundred extra, you get up and walk away. They can have 100% of nothing.
I've seen the SE and National terms used locally when I was shopping trucks. For whatever reason, the Southeast Toyota Distributor is independent and often has slightly different options than all the other national distributors. Since I live near the NC/Va Line, I have had many occasions to compare dealers on different sides of the line (and hence served by different distributors). The web sites for all the Southeast dealers have the same basic inventory search features and they show you all the cars meeting your specs available in the Southeast region. If you go to the web site for a dealer in Va, the web sites are all over the place. Here are two to compare:
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These dealers are less than 40 miles apart.
If you look for a 5 speed manual Tacoma in Elizabeth City, NC, the web site list 153 vehicle available in the SE region. You can't even do the same search at Priority Toyota - you can just search on Tacoma, and then plow through the list to find one like you want. And you only get 24 to choose from. And the list price is higher in Va. by over $500. The Southeast dealers seem to be able to trade vehicles at will, but there is no way to get one across the line between Va and NC. My SO was looking for a RAV4 and found one like she wanted in Va, but didn't want to go there to get it. Dealer in NC said it was impossible to transfer one from Va to NC, but found one elsewhere in the SE for her.
As I understand it, Toyota owns all the US distributors except for Southeast Toyota and Gulf States Toyota
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). I often see Toyotas differentiated as National and Southeast, but never see differentiation for Gulf States Toyota. I took a look at a Houston Toyota Dealers web site and it is more like the one in Va. instead of the cookie cutter ones you see at Southeast Distributors. Ed
On the other hand, I know of a local Chevy dealer where they refuse to let people walk out the door if they're making any halfway reasonable offer. (One of my friends worked there for a while and told me this. They evidently figured that getting a customer in the door is really hard and you just don't let them go somewhere else.)
The difference in options is due to differences in how the person who submits the production order preference handles dealer requests. I believe that the distribution departments at the independent distributors are incentivised on the profit that the distributor makes so you tend to see more options. As a TMD employee, we were judged more on sales velocity so we equipped the cars so that they would sell the quickest.
Since I live near the NC/Va Line, I have had many occasions to
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I believe that SET uses dealer network software from the TMD regions so there are differences in what the consumer sees in linked web sites. When I worked for TMD, I always felt that the TMS IT department was always well behind the curve, and the TMD sales, service, and parts department policies and procedures were driven by IT dept policies instead of the other way around.
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> ).
That is correct. TMS has gradually taken over the independent distributors. Mid-Atlantic Toyota (MAT) was the most recent acquisition, about 1990 or so; they are now known as Central Atlantic Toyota (CAT). Before that was New England Toyota, which is now the Boston Region, and Mid-States Toyota, which is now the Chicago Region.
The Boston region dealers used to tell me that they thought they died and went to heaven when they were able to deal directly with TMD employees instead of the previous independent distributor.
Interestingly enough, SET's chairman is a former Ford dealer from Chicago. I don't hear much public news of his generosity, but I've heard from his emplyees that he is very people-oriented, and has paid the medical expenses for sick children of dealership employees at the best hospitals in the country, letting them fly on one of his Gulfstreams for treatment. I've met the man, and his personality doesn't match the agressive business practices one hears of. He is soft-spoken, always has a smile for people, and drives a Corolla. I doubt that he drives the Corolla due to budgetary constraints since he can afford 2 G-V Gulfstream jets, a helicopter, a 160' Feadship, a
140' Feadship, another 100' yacht, and a small 40 footer to get from his house to where the yachts are moored.
I often see Toyotas differentiated as National and Southeast, but never
I believe that Gulf States Toyota uses Toyota's dealer network so it will appear to be the same on a web site that links to the dealer inventory.
Toyota actually uses 3-digit numerical prefixes to denote regions, with the first 2 digits denoting the region and the 3rd digit denoting the district within the region, and the first 2 digits of the dealer code denoting the state. For example, the Boston Region used to have 5 districts, so a dealer in district 3 in Western MA might be 123-04001.
Here's a fresh example. I had e-mailed a dealer and written:
"I am ready to buy in the very near future, so my questions are about availability and final out-the-door price (incl. all fees and taxes) for this car."
This is what I got today:
"I can sell it to you for $xx,xxx + tax + doc($99). Keep in mind that we have to pay and insure drivers to go get this for you."
I doubt they are just mentioning the last part for informational reasons, I assume they will try to stick on a charge based on that too (I need to e-mail and just verify of course, maybe I am mistaken and will be pleasantly surprised).
I'd respond in writing with "So I added it all up, and the 'Out The Door' Total Price for that car is $xx,xxx, right? If I bring a check in from the bank for $xx,xxx we're all done and I own the car."
Then if they order in the car for you, have you drive down to the dealer to sign the papers and THEN they try playing the "F&I Add-On's Game" after the fact... You drop a copy of that letter on the desk, ask them to read it out loud, and see what their response is.
If they still want to tack on more money, you stand up, walk out, and drive away.
They either charge you the agreed upon price, or they can keep the car and eat the transfer costs. If they have the 'Big Brass Ones' to think that a finalized agreement can be reopened for negotiation after the handshake, they are sorely mistaken.
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