Buying a New Toyota- Understanding Fees Listed On Invoice

[Kaotic Lazagna]

Originally Posted by GrayYaris

Good tips- thank you. What about the holdback? Isn't that usually listed on the factory invoice?

There are two types of invoice sheets, and only one actually shows the dealer holdback. It was also the invoice that was hidden somewhere in the inventory database, so I probably only found and printed it out a handful of times in the 3.5 years I sold cars. iirc, it's the invoice that looks super simple and plain, almost 80s print out like. lol

It should be noted that, at least at the dealership I worked for, any expenses related to the specific unit is deducted from the holdback. So for example, if the car was, say, dented or scratched on the lot and was repaired, that came out of the holdback. It was infuriating to actually make a "positive" deal on a car, only to find out after the deal has been made and contracts signed that I actually made a negative deal because of this. This does happen quite often as dealerships try to cram as much inventory on their lots as possible, so door dings and scratches are becoming inevitable; not to mention if they cheap out on their "detailers." By detailers, I don't mean when the car is sold and actually gets detailed, I'm referring to the power wash crew that is brought out and sprays down the cars on the lots. If they're incompetent, they smack the cars with the hoses and use dirty towels to dry the cars. I remember actually making my GM fire and switch companies because a Prius I sold ended up requiring almost $3k in body work, so that was a negative $3k deal for me. I never did follow up to see if the GM forced that company to pay the body shop bill.

So in the end, I actually wouldn't use holdback as a negotiation piece.


A better negotiation tactic would be to try to purchase on the last day of the month. I know more dealerships are going away from the typical commission system in favor of units sold equaling tiered salaries. So for example, if selling 16 units bumps the sales person up a tier, and on the last day of the month they're at 15 units, they just have to sell one car (by themselves) to get to their next bump. Just that one car deal can cost them $1k to $3k salary, and that has happened to me before where I lost out on that money due to being short 0.5 units (if another sales person helps in your car deal, they get half the unit count). But if you don't want to wait until the last day of a month, just build the car to spec on Edmunds and try to shave off a little more off the "actual market price" or what ever they termed it.

One other bit of information, the longer you drag out negotiations, the less likely the sales manager will be inclined to take "stupid" deals. I can almost guarantee you getting a great deal if you find the Rav4 your family is looking to get on your dealerships website with the stock/inventory number, build it on Edmunds and print out what they say the market price is, go in and do the whole test drive bit, go back to their desk to "negotiate a deal," and simply pull out the print out and ask them if they can do (insert your amount here) better. Get all that done in under 30 minutes, and I'm sure they'll say yes. And also say you'll give them perfect scores on the sales survey (just make sure you actually give them perfect scores) if they can agree to those terms.