I'm looking to buy a silver Trail with KDSS, nav, and tow package but am unable to find them anywhere. A couple of dealers have said that I would have to special order it and that it would take 4 - 6 months. Does this sound right to you guys/gals? I understand that the tragedies in Japan have caused delays but that sure seems like a long time. I've looked at the inventories of many major dealers in CA and have yet to find one with these exact options.
Has anyone else here had to wait that long?
:thanks:
Ditto this--> Best bet is to find someone on the inside at Toyota that will help you out.
I "ordered" mine the day before xmas 12/24/10. A 2011 Black Trail with Nav. Dealer says, "no problem I'll find you one and get it here (Oregon) in 2 weeks!" After two weeks, they came back to me and said, um, there is no black TE w/Nav anyplace in OR, WA, CA, ID, MO, NV, UT, AZ, basically none on the entire west coast. So dealer says we have to order it, I say no problem order it!
Dealer said no problem, take 6-8 weeks. It arrived in my hands on 3/20 - 3months after my original request on 12/24/10. One week or so after I had it, the earthquake hit. Or maybe the earthquake came just before I had it in hand, I seem to remember talking with the dealer about the problems in Japan. In any case, the timing for me was close to the initial earthquakes and subsequent issues for Japan.
As it turns out, since TE Black w/Nav is a standard production model, they can't just "Order" one, they have to wait until one is produced and put in a request for it. So the dealer checks the shipped vehicles every week on a computer to see what is available and they request delivery of said vehicle.
If they miss it and someone else requests it first they are SOL unless they can trade the other dealer out of it somehow. And if too many requests come in for other vehicles on the ship, the ship goes to the port that is closest to the most requests. Does that make sense? So even if your dealer gets in the request, first one on the west coast and the rest of the shipment is marked for the east coast, you are SOL. (this according to my dealer)
In my case the dealer missed a TE Black w/NAV in January that ended up in Alaska, and missed another one in FEB that went to Chicago. After missing the only 2 produced in 2 months, my dealer started checking the "computer" everyday. (Mostly due to my hounding them!) Technically the dealer also missed the one I got in March!! The one in March that I got, actually went to a Dealer in Washington State, because that's where the shipment docked. But they had no buyer for it, so my dealer made a trade of some sort and got it for me.
It seems the the '11 Black TE w/Nav are only being produced at the rate of 1 per month. I'm not sure about the Silver. And with all the troubles in Japan, I'm sure that number of 1 per month is down. They totally stopped production for a period of time.
My dealer also told me a few other things.
1) They (Toyota) base the production runs on what was sold last year. Black was not popular last year I guess.
2)They only make "special orders" if you request something that is offered but not standard. ???? I know that sounds crazy, so I said, "huh, what" and they explained it this way, I would have to order a Black TE w/ Purple interior but since they don't offer purple interior on the T4R it could never happen. So to get a special order you would have to want some quirk in the major options, that was odd. Major options are like the paint/interior/engine/drivetrain/2 vs 4wd, etc.
So in other words, I took that to mean, Toyota does not do "Special Orders", they just make every available mix of options on every available color.
3) All the misc options like running boards, floor mats, remote start, blu logic, cargo net, etc are not factory, the dealer adds them to get the biggest bang for the buck. That's not to say some models don't have these options from the factory, because i guess some do, with the make one of everything scatter shot approach.
So in my case the '11 TE w/Nav was bare bones no added floor mats, cargo nets, running boards, nothing. The dealer added the floor mats for me at cost since I had to wait so long. If I wanted running boards it was like $1000, when I knew I could get them myself for a 1/3 of that price or less, I passed on them.
It's kind of the "If they build it, You will buy it mentality"
Hope that helps
--
I got lucky! That was 2 weeks ago.
