I know I"m not the only one and there have been posts about this, but I wanted to add to the growing list of people who are done with Toyota and their dealerships. When dealerships take advantage of customers on a large scale (I’m looking specifically at Toyota who has added dealer markups of $12-15K for a Toyota Rav4 Prime), all the decades of being a customer and advocate goes away. Yes, you can take advantage because of the supply situation, and Toyota can lose lifetime customers in the process because of the dealership and Toyota not doing anything about it when customers complained.
I will consider Lexus without giving them the benefit of the doubt, but not Toyota because of the actions of just about every Toyota dealership I have seen over the past two years. I’m just one person, but I’ve got to think there are more like me who are done with Toyota for their dealerships’ actions.
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You are not alone. I can buy whatever car I want and I refuse to deal with the shenanigans with the Toyota dealers and distributors.
And you know who you should really blame (next to the dealers)? Those idiot buyers ahead of you that actually paid the dealer markups because they had to buy those cars, basically rewarding bad behavior.
Toyota can’t do jack shit about it based on US franchise laws.
It sucks, but as others have said, what can toyota do? The answer is not much. What you can do is shame the dealer publicly and do business with an msrp only dealer. That’s what I did when I was looking for a GR Corolla, and eventually, I found a dealer that was msrp only and had an open allocation spot. The name of the game here is patience. You may have to wait a bit, but you’ll get your car if you choose the right dealer and are willing to wait. It sucks, but this is just the market right now, especially for new toyotas.
State laws mandate that Toyota sell through dealerships. Dealers want profit, Toyota is not to blame for markups. Look up auto dealer laws in your state.
This is where negotiating cones in…and if they don’t want to sell you the car at the price you want, go somewhere else. But remember, if you buy with emotion, you already lost.
OP, what do you want Toyota to do?
Maybe ask Toyota if u can bypass the middleman, honestly dealerships are stupid as fk. They make money on parts n repairs… don’t be mad at Toyota. It’s ur local dealership. Learn to haggle.
For what it’s worth, I bought a '23 Prius in October with zero dealer markup, zero hassle from the finance department to try to upsell me on anything. There ARE good dealers out there, maybe just not in your area.
We had a really great experience at one of our local Toyota dealerships. One of the lending execs I work with confirmed they sold us a 2018 rav4 at msrp. And they don’t over charge us for maintenance or anything. Maybe it’d be different if we got a new car, but glad we’ve had a positive experience either way.
You can shear a sheep dozens of times. You can only skin them once.
There are still good Toyota dealers but you might have to travel a bit. My parents bought a 2021Rav4 Prime for MSRP in I think Corvallis Or. Picked out their car, waited a couple of months for it to be built, and drove six hrs to pick it up. The dealer didn’t even make them put anything down to hold it.
Hate to break it to you but this is literally economics 101, not enough supply and high demand. Market sets the price, morons are paying the market ups.
I’m done with dealerships in general. Fuck all of them. Think what you want about EVs, but the direct-to-consumer model the companies are pushing forward with is the way to go.
It’s not Toyota, it’s the dealerships. Running a dealership is like running a circus. They are always trying to maximize profit without pissing off existing customers. They tend not to bend over backwards for new customers unless you are a willing to overpay for a new or used car. Covid hurt a lot of dealers and they are still reeling from that period. They only add markup if people will pay it. So, hopefully the market full of suckers will lean out after they overpay for existing vehicles on sale. Then we can go back to paying fair prices.
Given my age , I hope to never needing to buy another car again but I kinda envy the ease at you can buy a Tesla