How much did you pay for your 2010 Yaris?

[rtom]

2010 Yaris 5-speed 3-door liftback
Convenience package
All-weather-guard package
Window VIN etching

I didn't really bargain. My total was $14,083 out the door which includes everything: $750 cash back, DMV fees, 6% CT sales tax, $249 "conveyence fee", $174 for VIN etching, and anything else I've forgotten.

I have to say I'm not that happy with how the sale went. I won't bore you with the details, but if anyone wants to hear a story about a certain Connecticut dealer who will never see my Yaris for service, let me know.

[YarisOwnersDad]

Originally Posted by rtom

2010 Yaris 5-speed 3-door liftback
Convenience package
All-weather-guard package
Window VIN etching

I didn't really bargain. My total was $14,083 out the door which includes everything: $750 cash back, DMV fees, 6% CT sales tax, $249 "conveyence fee", $174 for VIN etching, and anything else I've forgotten.

I have to say I'm not that happy with how the sale went. I won't bore you with the details, but if anyone wants to hear a story about a certain Connecticut dealer who will never see my Yaris for service, let me know.

Bore us. I would like to hear about what got you so upset with the dealership, if you don't mind sharing.

It's sad that you are off to such a bad start with them, because the dealer CAN be your friend. The relationship does not have to be adversarial, although it does seem to be that way all too often. What went wrong in this case?

Tom

[rtom]

Originally Posted by YarisOwnersDad

Bore us. I would like to hear about what got you so upset with the dealership, if you don't mind sharing.

It's sad that you are off to such a bad start with them, because the dealer CAN be your friend. The relationship does not have to be adversarial, although it does seem to be that way all too often. What went wrong in this case?

Tom

OK, here goes -- by popular demand.

I should preface this with a caveat: I'm very cheap and a bit finicky. It's actually a minor miracle that my girlfriend ever convinced me to buy a new car at all. Given this background, it was probably given that I wouldn't walk out of there glowing.

However, I'm pretty sure that the irregularities in my purchasing experience were not due solely to the dealership just being very busy. Tell me what you think.

I knew that I wanted a base trim 3-door liftback with a manual transmission and at most the convenience package (i.e., no power package). After scanning inventory at a bunch of Connecticut dealers, I knew that there weren't very many of these around. In fact, last week I could find just three in CT. One was quite far away, and a closer one was not selling for at least a few weeks (was something wrong with it?). So last week, with my girlfriend in town for the holidays (she lives ca 200 miles away), I e-mailed these three dealerships to ask them what their best price would be on the car I was interested in. I heard back quickly by phone from the closest of the three dealerships in question, the one with the car that hadn't sold for at least a few weeks. After I explained what I wanted, the sales associate said that she would e-mail me in five minutes with an out-the-door quote with the total broken out into all of its components. At this point she mentioned that the total would include a VIN etching fee that was, she said, "required by law". I knew that the VIN etching wasn't required by law, but I just said "fine, we'll look forward to your e-mail." So we waited around for about half an hour, but there was still no e-mail from her. Finally I called her back to see what was going on. The salesperson then gave me an oral quote that was just over $14K, and that still included the VIN etching fee. I told her I did not want the VIN etching, so she then revised the OTD quote to about $13,910. "OK", I said, "we'll see you later this afternoon". I needed to test-drive the car before buying it, partly because the only other Yaris I'd test-driven was an automatic. I did try to get info from the other two dealerships, but I wasn't able to get anything definitive about the cars of interest from a knowledgeable person.

After running some errands, we got to the dealership. My contact was busy with other customers, but she kindly gave me the keys to the car I wanted to buy so that I could check it out (and warm it up -- it was cold that day!). I wish I could be 100% sure, but to be honest I am only about 95% sure that at this point -- during the test drive -- there was no VIN etching on the windows. The test drive was fine, though the engagement point on the clutch is a little closer to the floor than I prefer (I should get this adjusted).

Back inside, and I said I wanted to buy it at the price we'd agreed upon by phone. No problems with insurance. With the finance fellow there was suddenly a problem. Apparently, he said, my salesperson had accidentally subtracted the VIN etching fee of about $174 TWICE in order to come up with the OTD price. At this point I pulled out my calculator and attempted to replicate the numbers he was rapidly scrawling. Now, I am good with numbers, but these guys are even better with wearing you down. At this point it occurred to me that I had no written/e-mailed proof of the OTD price from my salesperson -- was the e-mail missing on purpose? Anyway, I fairly rapidly just gave up, thinking that over the lifetime of the car that $174 might be as little as $10/year.

The final note is that when I did get around to getting into the car again with my salesperson to go fill up the tank, I noticed that the VIN etching was definitely there, and very obvious! Surely it had not been there during the test drive -- I would have noticed it.

So there it is. I don't feel like I got screwed by any means, but there were just a couple of little screw-ups, and a hint of dishonesty about a $174 item that I can't prove. But it's enough to make me desire to take the car elsewhere for service. There's another dealer that's closer to me, anyway. And the dealership I bought the car from has some pretty bad reviews online about their service department -- much worse than the other Connecticut dealerships I've looked at.

[rytis]

what a story rtom... yeah one dealer tried to force me to buy window etching for $198, but I said, "No thank you" and and walked away. And thankfully I found a much better dealer and deal. Everything turned out very nicely for us.