Last Friday I went to go look to buy an FJ cruiser at a chain Dealership. It's not a 4Runner but still toyota related. I test drove the car and liked it and it was priced at $19000. I offered him $17000 but the dealer countered me at $18500. I pressed at $17000 but eventually offered them $17500 and I would cut them a check right then and there. They told me no and I ended up going walking out. Funny thing is I checked their website this morning and they had adjusted their price to $17500! What I don't understand is why didn't they sell me the car for that price last week? Now a week later they lowered their price and more than likely new prospect buyer will definitely offer less than their new asking price. -confused in texas lol.

I don't even try to understand what dealers are thinking these days. Lately I've seen some strange things and the last time I was looking at a vehicle at one (about a year ago) the salesperson tried some really shady tactics that pissed me off. In your case, it makes no sense to me since you were offering a check and not financing. In my experience that makes you a god in their eyes since most people finance.

Yea. It's just so strange. Unless they found something new that's wrong with it and now just trying to get rid of it. I don't know. It's been on the lot for almost 2 months now and I caught the sales manager lying to me twice which threw red flags. He told me it was on the lot for only 1 week. I showed him proof that it was almost 2 months and he didn't want to hear it. He then added 8.25 percent sales tax to the end price and I told him Texas was 6.25 percent sales tax and he said I was wrong. I told him I was 100% correct and he eventually said he mixed up sales tax with another state. I said we are in Texas and you should know. Lol

I just came back and spoke directly to the manager. Left with a FJ cruiser for $17000.

Good for you man, you got the price you wanted to begin with, congrats!

Dealers are a finicky bunch, but at the end of day, its all about making money and closing the deal. You would think paying cash would be more appealing to them, but its actually not. They make more money on the deal if you finance through them, so they actually prefer that you finance. I just went through that, and ended up loosing a $500 cash incentive on the new purchase because I chose not to finance.

You had mentioned that its at a chain dealership. In some cases the chain dealerships have computer programs that handle all pricing thus making it possible that the price was lowered automatically. 17500 still doesn't include applicable taxes and what not. Glad you got it worked out!

Check vs Financing is the same. If there is one better it would be financing the reason is that the banks pay the dealer either a flat amount or percentage depending on the bank in order to originate the loan. Also the banks money is more of a guarantee in there eyes and also by financing with the dealer you allow the opportunity to sell extended service contracts and warranty's

Congrats though, got it for what you wanted.

What was the book value on the FJ? Just curious since I am now in the market and everything I am looking at is at the Dealers

...and i hope when you went back, you found the sales guy who turned you down, and thumbed your nose at him as you paid one of his coworkers the commission...

ive had that happen when buying bikes. they want to act like they are hard-lining you, when in your case, they are just being stupid.

i walked into a chain dealership, docs in hand with an approved loan and they treated me like i was King Soloman. Sir this, Sir that, handshakes all around...and got my 2014 in December of 2014, as they were trying to clear their lot of all the 2014s...so a new 4Rnnr SR5 4WD for $27.5

yeah, i know...they had three, i was lucky enough to snatch the last one.

I felt like the people in that 'Credit Score' web site commercial...walked smacking hi-5s and pointing like i was a star

Hey guys, I'm going to look at purchasing a 4runner this week. Never owned one but always wanted one. I'm looking at an '04 sr5 and an '06 sr5. Can anyone tell me the difference between the different years? (if any) Any buyers tips would be much appreciated

For the differences they made each year i always go to kbb.com download their app from the play store its a lot easier to use. Great tool.

I also just settled on a price of $34300 with $200 credit towards the parts and service department which helps me because im having them put on trd wheels and tires so the $200 will be helpfull.

Iv been reading and trying to find out if $34300 is a good deal and im having trouble finding out. I live in a small area in wi.Its a 2016 sr5 4x4 with no added options coming on the train to town 5 to 6 weeks after i put the $500 down next week. Any opinions about this deal would be greatly appreciated

Good for you. Hope you get many happy miles in it.

lol, they lowered the price because no one is interested to buy except you, at least you made them a thought of you coming back and buy it, they might regret their refusal

So here’s a little (heh) story of what my Toyota car buying experiences have been like.

Three years ago, I bought a 2013 4WD Double Cab Long Bed SR5 Tacoma. I originally started looking in December 2012, but didn’t end up buying one until March of 2013. One learning experience here is that the end of year sales are a real thing. I could have saved an extra $530 if I had taken an offer shown to me in December, that I never saw equaled over the next few months. Unfortunately, I had just started the process, and didn’t yet have a feel for what exactly was a good price.

When I finally decided to pull the trigger in March, I started off emailing 10 dealers in the Houston area for quotes. My benchmark was the out the door number of $29,875 which was shown to me in December. This embedded truck price was 11% under the straight up $31,475 of the vehicle sticker. This is what was on the truck:

Base Tacoma – 28,185
SR5 Option – 1,630
Towing Package - 650
Floor Mats – 165
Destination – 845
Total MSRP - 31,475

Emailing all of the different dealers basically didn’t get me much. They kept showing me prices 1,000’s of dollars higher with all of the dealer crap on them that I didn’t want. I finally went into the dealership of the lowest of the bad prices, and asked him to order the above and offered a no negotiation price of $30,500 OTD (28,500 for the truck, 1.0625% taxes, and 125 for TTL). The 28,500 was a 9.5% discount from sticker MSRP. We did the deal, I waited two weeks for delivery, and I still love my Tacoma as much as ever.

Jump ahead to this week, and my wonderful teen aged daughter has totaled my wife’s SUV, so I’m back in the market this weekend for a new vehicle. I decided to go with the 2016 2WD 4Runner SR5 Premium. (To be truthful, I wanted the base SR5, but my wife felt it was worth it to pay an extra 2,000 so she could park her caboose on fake pleather and have a sun roof that will one day leak and cause me an extra 1,000 in repair bills….but I digress)

So I grab the old spreadsheet, plug in the 4Runner and get the following:

2WD SR5 Premium – 36,490
Destination – 900
Regional Ad Fee (I know…) – 60
Rebates – (750)
Total MSRP – 36,700

A big point here is that I don’t need anything at all beyond the base SR5 Premium.

I applied the previously experienced 9% MSRP discount add 1.0625% tax and 125 TTL and my target is $35,600. As I really needed to get something done this weekend, I bumped it to 8% for a nice even $36,000 bid. I call up 10 dealers in the area, and they show me offers mainly in the 38,000 – 42,000 range, with two around 37,500. Not getting anywhere on the phone, I jump in the car and begin the Odyssey.

First dealer I go to, I tell them I’d like to order a base SR5 Premium, don’t care when it comes in, and I’m firm at 36,000. They try the stalling tactics, back and forth with the manager, and finally won’t show anything better than 38K something for one of their inventory which is loaded up with dealer crap. So, on to the next….

Second dealer, I tell them the same thing, but I raise the bid to 36,200. Guy says they’ll go 37,500, but that’s it. (This also happened to be the same dealer I ordered my Tacoma at)

Third dealer I sit down at, I raise the b
id to 36,500. Again, they only want to talk about local inventory priced much higher. They don’t even show a price.

The fourth dealer is where I originally did all of my test driving, and I really like and have a good rapport with the sales agent. I up the bid to 36,800. He brings the sales manager out and they refuse. Talks about how he’d be losing money, no one’s going to do a deal at a loss, yada yada yada. Again, no one will consider ordering me a base SUV, and they only want to talk about local inventory. At this point I’m really confused. I’m positive there is an extra 1,000 of margin in this for them if they will just order me the SUV I want.

I go home for dinner thinking it’s time to buy a Honda Pilot. It’s while eating that I notice one of the 10 dealers had sent me decent pricing on a base SR5, but hadn’t responded when I asked for the Premium pricing also. I give him a call at 8:00. Same spiel, “I would like to order a SR5 Premium with no dealer adds and I’m willing to pay 36,800.” He offers to sell me the color I want, with a bunch of dealer adds I don’t need, but at my 36,800. I’m like ok………

An hour later, I’m 60 miles away buying the SUV from the nicest, most knowledgeable sales agent I’ve run across. The SUV came with the following add-ons:

Premium Mats – 325
Aluminum Running Boards – 599
Cargo Net – 50
Roof Rack Cross Bars – 185
Cargo Cover - 155

That’s an additional 1,314 on the MSRP. Granted, I don’t think the cost on all of that is more than 300-400, but still…..if the fourth dealer had just ordered me the car I wanted, that would have been another 300-400 in free margin to him.

And guess what, the embedded SUV price of 34,517 is 9.2% off the sticker MSRP. This tells me my original 35,600 OTD price for the base SR5 Premium is accurate, but none of them could be asked to do it unless they also got to overcharge me for a bunch of useless dealer adds. While I get that all companies want to sell higher margin add-ons, you would think that one of the first dealers would have gone for less money is better than no money.

Any who, that’s my experience, hope someone gains something from it.