foote@denelcor.UUCP (05/24/83)
Target: Denver Area Toyota Dealers (Auto Dealers in general)
Purpose: Flame about terrible business quality, warnings for future buyers
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This past weekend has been an eye-opening one for my wife and I. We
went out to try and buy a Toyota Tercel, either a Deluxe (my preference)
if we could get a good deal, or the basic model. Well, good deals don't
exist with Denver area Toyota dealers, rip-off prices/extras and
discourteous service do.
Burt's in Littleton - (Best of the 3)$465 over dealer price wasn't a good enough
margin, they wanted $400 more (their response offer) to cover "advertising"
and other overhead costs just to put an order on a car. As well they had
done a "dealer locate" and assurred us that NO basic Tercel's existed in
an 8 state region.
Stevenson's (sp?) in Lakewood(?) - Remember that basic model that didn't
exist? One had been sitting on the lot for 2-3 days, and they had 4 coming
on their next allocation. We offered list price to get one of the cars on
allocation (~$400+ above dealer cost). Response, can't sell because of
advertising overhead, finance costs of having cars sitting on the lot,
etc., etc. Their cost was supposedly "much more" than list. Initially
they wanted to charge us $995 for factory undercoating and paint sealant.
Longmont Toyota - We went here since they were out of Denver Metro area and
supposedly treated people better. We made our $465 offer and the guy told
us that it was a "totally unrealistic" offer, we would NEVER get a Toyota
at that price. His counter-offer was to take $383 off of list price on an
order, but the car we would get would have to come with radio, hatch-cover,
cloth seats, etc., etc., since they "didn't come any other way".
Now besides making us feel like total assholes at the end of our visit, the
guy was ok. We were so stupid not to take his deal because Denver area
dealers would rip us off even more.
CONCLUSION: We bought a Mazda GLC at ~list price off the lot. This included
several dealer packs so we figured they made $400-$500 over dealer cost in
the end, which I have no objection to. (Northwest Mazda, Thorton).
If anyone out there is thinking of buying a Toyota, I doubt you are going
to get any kind of a reasonable deal. With the Consumer Reports ratings
and the import quotas, it seems they are willing to wait around for someone
who will pay all this "extra" overhead crap. We were extremely offended
that after 4 months of carefully considering all cars, renting a few to
take a long "test drive", that we were treated as totally dumb people by
the Toyota dealers here.
As well, I am very depressed by the amount of outright lies told by
these people, increasing as you get closer to buying something. I have
NEVER experienced such a pack of thieves and liers in all of my life.
One warning, the Longmont dealer said (in order to pressure us into
ordering with him) that many dealers take orders for a car without all
the dealer packs on it, then put them on when they get the car. So you
either pay for the packs or continue to wait, all the time they
have your non-refundable deposit.
Final Note - The Mazda dealer treated us O.K., but the finance manager
tried to push his financing on us over a loan we had set up with our
credit union. Said that we wouldn't get any credit rating on our loan,
and only when I breathed smoke and fire did he shut up and get on with
it.jeff@tesla.UUCP (05/25/83)
All this letter shows is that the Free Market is working. Japan has been forced to limit its auto exports to the USA to assure the survival of incompetent Detroit management, so fewer Toyotas, or whatever, are imported, so dealers are arrogant and customers pay more. As long as there are people willing to pay the prices asked for for cars "on allocation", or cars can be sold after sitting only a few days on a lot (ask a Detroit- product dealer how long his cars sit on his lot, on average) the situation won`t change. You shouldn`t write to the Net; you should write to your Congressman and the President, reminding them that import quotas result in increased costs for EVERYBODY. Jeff