Here's a humorous story of how we stumbled upon our new '14.....
Just for the hell of it one night we pulled into the a dealer lot after dinner with my wife's Tacoma. We just wanted to see what the 14's looked like. We thought they changed the Taco for 2014, but now the redesign is in '15. Anyway, we went past the '14 4Runners and we loved that dark blue one sitting there. I called the dealership from my cell and got the fleet manager, told him I was on his lot. I know the guy, we've bought off him a few times in the past 15 years. We got numbers quickly, he a no BS salesman, thankfully because I hate that crap. This model was an SR5, but not the Premium model. So.... we left and went on our way, with a copy of the deal in hand. That was a good thing because what happened next was amazing. We went to another dealer closer to home the next day.
They had one of the same color sitting there, but it was a Premium model, and loaded with additional options as well. Really well equipped as compared to the other one - but the price was way out there, about $8K difference sticker-wise.
This dealer did NOT want to lose a deal to the previous dealer. It actually became humorous to us, normally I would walk out with the back and forth crap, but this was getting good. We stuck to our price, match what the previous dealer gave us or we go back over there and sign. Simple. My god, they went for it!!! LOL.....they were so pissed every time we mentioned the other dealer's name...that is what was sooo damn funny. My wife and I could not stop laughing about it.
Every time we would mention the other dealership name, the price got closer to match the other dealer's deal on a SR5 Base, without all the options. 30 minutes later, two managers came over, fleet and the GM, and they asked again what would it take for us to buy the truck, I said they must have been deaf because I have a deal for one waiting for me, if they want to sell the damn thing, match it or we walk --NOW.
LOL.... not only did they match it to the penny, but they bought down the interest rate at TFS to under 3%. I was hysterical but kept that to myself until I could walk away and talk to my wife alone - we were both laughing our butts off! I called the guy at the other dealership, and gave him the VIN. He was laughing hard as well, because somebody was getting fired on this one and it wasn't him! LOL. We left with a new '14 SR5 Premium for a price lower than the Base SR5 we looked at the previous night.
Lesson learned --- Shop around, get quotes IN HAND, and try to find some gullible dealer that's doing battle with another one in your area. Besides a killer deal I got on a Z06 Corvette a few years ago, this has got to be one of the best car deals I ever nailed in my life. If I could have, I would have bought two of them for that price.
Here's the final gig: Sticker $42,784.00 Price before tax/tags - $36,700.00
Not too shabby. That's six grand difference. The other dealer guy I know told me they were losing thousands on that thing just to move it. Right place, right time I guess, or one helluva mistake in my favor! Good luck all and hang in there for a deal!