Always do your homework

My sister Lori recently decided to buy a new Prius.  Of course she called her car geek bro (me) for approval and she had my blessing.  The Prius boasts a roomy cabin within its compact footprint, has decent performance, offers a user-friendly navigation system (along with a handy back-up camera) and of course gets great fuel mileage.

Once Lori makes up her mind, she goes to it.  So she went to the local Toyota dealer (with my dad in tow) and they had one Prius.  It was the standard model in Blue (her color choice) and had Mambo -- I mean Package #5.  That package includes a navigation system, a back-up camera, CD changer, stability control and HID headlights, among other things. This car also had optional floor mats.

According to the window sticker (which I had her read to me), the bottom line was $28, 275.  As it was the only one in stock, they wanted close to sticker.  She relayed this to me (I was at my office here in L.A., she lives in southern New Hampshire)...

I quickly priced out the car on Edmunds and got a sticker price exactly $2,000 less.  The difference was with Package #5:  The Toyota sticker on the Prius she was looking at showed the price of the package as $5,280, where Edmunds showed it as $3,280. 

Scratching my head, I checked out Toyota's website.  What had happened was Toyota lowered the price of that package, as seen on their site as a "Savings Bonus of up to $2,000".  Dealers are supposed to affix a new window sticker (supplied by Toyota, of course) to the Priuses on their lot to reflect the lower price.  Strangely enough, this dealership didn't.

I called her back and told her get outta there but to first tell them "Nice try, but the price of that package is supposed to be $2,000 less."  I also said if they acknowledge it and want to continue negotiations, to call me before she closes the deal.

She got off the phone and called me back 20 minutes later, telling me they would honor that discount and admitted they "forgot" to replace the window sticker with the updated one.

Bottom line?  She got the car for $26,275 and felt great about it and said I "saved the day" by saving her that $2,000.  Unfortunately, she had already inked the deal and was going to take delivery shortly.

In essence, she had paid sticker.  During all of this, I had put the Edmunds "Get Dealer Quotes" process into action.  Within a few hours, I had gotten a bona fide price quote from one dealership -- the very same one she just bought her car from!  The internet manager sent me a straight forward e-mail quoting me a price about $1,000 under sticker -- in other words, $1,000 less than what she paid!

I responded to him, stating that the deal was already struck and asked if he could do anything, I even suggested giving Lori a credit for future service work on her Prius.  He responded fairly quickly but unfortunately stated that "his hands were tied".  I couldn't really be mad at the guy, as he did offer us the car at a great price.

My sis is overjoyed with her new Prius, and she felt she got a good deal as her mindset was that she saved $2,000.  I didn't want to rain on her parade so I just said she still did fine and ended up with the exact color and options she wanted, which is worth something too. 

Moral of the story?  Always do your homework.  Or at least give your brother time to do your homework before you sign the bottom line!

John DiPietro, Automotive Editor

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John DiPietro June 13, 2007, 1:16 PM

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