First of all, thank you to anyone who has helped me learn about the new 4Runners in my other posts! (sorry for the typo in the title, should be TRD ORP)

As our expectations of buying a later model 4R has evolved, we decided to push the budget and buy new, just in time for a market that's totally wack. We live in the San Francisco Bay Area (in S.F. proper) and just started looking around. My local S.F. Toyota doesn't have what we want and told us if we ordered a "custom" build, be prepared to wait 4-6 months. His allotment is all pre-sold, and if I wanted to get on his list, swing on by and drop a $500 deposit on him. I HAVE found what looked like exactly what we are looking for (TRD ORP, Army Green, KDSS, Cargo tray, NO "Performance exhaust") at another dealer, but the dealer that had it only returned multiple emails with boiler plate messages to "Come on down to the dealership" B.S., no "Yes we have that", or even a courtesy "no, we sold that an hour after we uploaded the listing". Guess this is just a sign of the times :-(.

We haven't bought a new vehicle in 20 years, last three I've bought were used Private Party, so I'm clueless as to what kind of games these guys will try and pull, or what a helpful dealer can actually do to put us in a 2022 4Runner and develop a long term relationship with. A couple questions for those of you who have recently made it into the Light and emerged with a new 4Runner, any thoughts or insight on these questions?

1. Is 4-6 months an accurate wait? Did you actually get the vehicle you ordered? Did you have to pay extra, over the asinine "Dealer Adjustment" markup we see here?
2. Can a dealer trade another dealer and bring in a vehicle from outside their area if I tell them what we want/don't want, or are we stuck shopping a large geographic area and have to drive miles to pick up one we find outside San Francisco?
3. How ugly did if get for you in fighting off other customers on The List?
4. What is a normal time frame for Dealer Allotments to get refreshed? Monthly?
5. Does Toyota send the dealers models at random, or do certain dealers seem to get similarly configured new vehicles based on what the dealer does well with? Example, would the dealer with the Army Green ORP we liked be likely to get a similar replacement in their next monthly allotment, or is it a crapshoot and just as likely the S.F. dealer would get one?
6. Is it a laugher to even ask a dealer for MSRP?

I pestered sales folks for weeks. Made lists of what was coming in at the respective dealers and made sure to check in, "Did they pick it up?"

My understanding on this "ordering" stuff is you aren't really ordering. Toyota is sending what they have allocated to that dealer. If you want something custom built you have to file paperwork with Toyota for an "exception" and if approved it might be built.

So the "Build your vehicle" feature on the Toyota corporate website is B.S.? The San Francisco dealer did mention the ordering as a way to get what we want without what we don't, is that what you mean by "filing paperwork with Toyota"?

That it is. If you fill it out and send it in you'll get a call from some regular old salesman that will try to sell you what is on the lot. "I see you're interested in an TRD Pro, we have an ORP on the lot" type thing.

The dealer inventory sheets are all you can go off of really, what is coming and what has been spoken for. Typically you can do a $500 or so deposit to put your name on an unclaimed vehicle.

Mine had a deposit on it, it arrived and the dealer called the guy for a week. Ol' boy finally fessed up that he didn't have the down payment he needed. Salesman called me next.

Former Toyota sales manager here:

1. Is 4-6 months an accurate wait? Did you actually get the vehicle you ordered?
Did you have to pay extra, over the asinine "Dealer Adjustment" markup we see here?
Yes 4-6 months is an accurate wait, however this is assuming there is little to no wait list. If you find a great price at a dealer but they have a waitlist 200 customers long, chances of you getting that car this year are slim. Lot of dealers are charging ADM, some aren't. You're going to have to expand your search radius dramatically and contact a lot of them.

2. Can a dealer trade another dealer and bring in a vehicle from outside their area if I tell them what we want/don't want, or are we stuck shopping a large geographic area and have to drive miles to pick up one we find outside San Francisco?
Dealer trades typically occur within their respective sales region, which is broken typically by geography. However, due to shortages, dealer trades are hard to come by. Some dealers aren't even selling to customers outside of their local market, let alone dealer trading their cars out.

3. How ugly did if get for you in fighting off other customers on The List?
4. What is a normal time frame for Dealer Allotments to get refreshed? Monthly?
Allocations occur monthly and are for the production period typically 6 weeks out. I made a post on Reddit summarizing the allocation process recently if you want to check it out.
Does Toyota not do custom orders? : askcarsales

5. Does Toyota send the dealers models at random, or do certain dealers seem to get similarly configured new vehicles based on what the dealer does well with? Example, would the dealer with the Army Green ORP we liked be likely to get a similar replacement in their next monthly allotment, or is it a crapshoot and just as likely the S.F. dealer would get one?
It's typically allocated based on regional and dealer level sales. The more you sell, the more you get.

6. Is it a laugher to even ask a dealer for MSRP?A dealer that is asking for ADM is not likely to come down to MSRP. You'll have to find one that is asking for MSRP up front.

This is probably going to go one of two ways, you manage to luck yourself into finding an in stock unit somewhere at a price you like (not likely). Or you find a dealer that you can agree with in principle on price, leave a deposit to be put on their waitlist, and then wait.

Thanks for all the info! Luckily, the S.F. Bay Area has a lot of dealers. Do you know if the vehicles they show on their website are actually in stock (the dealer I asked never replied), or even the configuration to expect they can even get in their monthly allotment, or just a lost leader to get us to get on their wait list and they may never get that config. again?

1. Yes, or longer.
2. Yes, but most dealers are not trading currently.
3. With the long wait times you might move up the list faster as people are not willing to keep waiting. But might not get the vehicle you want when the next one arrives on the lot.
If you have any after market mods you want it might be useful to price out everything and settle for a cheaper trim. I did that and added the factory accessories I wanted. Came out cheaper, but I did have to settle for a sunroof (wanted a Pro instead of ORP).
4. Here it is weekly. Unfortunately it has been less vehicles as plants temporarily close and the global chip shortage. Plus Toyota is focused on their next generation line up. 3rd Gen Sequoia looks nice. 6th Gen 4Runner is suppose to be 2023 model announced this summer, might be worth waiting
5. Depending on region high volume dealers get preference. I know my local dealer will get random vehicles (a few years ago they received a certain percentage of each trim, but that might be different now).
6. Never hurts to ask, but good luck in SF.

Typically vehicles will show on the website as soon as the dealer receives the invoice and the vehicle is in-transit. Online inventory postings are all automated processes - invoice gets sent to dealer, vehicle gets added to inventory, this then triggers the vehicle to go "live" even though it may be 4-6 weeks from actually hitting the lot.

When Toyota assigns their allocations they're going to look at previous sales history, but dealers are allowed to put in "preference requests". Read my post on Reddit to get a better understanding of this process.

Ultimately, it's all a crap shoot and randomized at best. Once the allocations come out for the month, that's when we go to work and trying to make adjustments where we can.