Why cant I buy Trail?

I have a friend that works at a dealership and he told me the Trail is not selling so they aren't making to ship out here (California). The only way to get one is by special order and most Toyota dealerships aren't able to do special orders because they don't have high volume. (I'm told only 1 dealership in So Cal can do it, which is Longo in El Monte and I've talked to them, they are sticking close to MSRP regardless of any program you go through IE. costco, true car, Amex, etc...) It's a restriction from Toyota, not the dealerships.

SO... most dealers will let your sale go if all you want is a TE because they simply can't get one. After all, they can't sell you a car they don't have or can't get.

Good luck...

Good info.

When I am ready and I cannot locate one in California then I will buy one from Las Vegas. I think they should have Trails there.
 
With regards to the few TE's in SoCal, they are left over 2010's and they are black and were not outfitted with the Navigation, not really the color or features I was looking for. The local dealers are unable to order them. So the only choice left in my case was to search elsewhere. It so happen I found a few 2011 in Magnetic Gray with Nav and without. Great deals were offered all. So its just a matter of the desire and willingness to go and get it. In my particular deal it was done over the phone and I had it delivered to my door step. Obviously, no trade to deal with which made it much simpler.

Mossy Toyota here in SD had a black TE a couple months ago when I went in for an oil change, but it could have been a left over '10 like you said.

Must be nice for you (keeping it very rare) if they will no longer be getting any new TE's... I still haven't seen any on the road here in San Diego
 
Midwest

I "ordered" a trail about 6 weeks ago with my local dealer. They had one on the lot, but it was in a different color than I wanted. They told me it may take 12-14 weeks, so I am still waiting. If I was less picky I know of 3 or 4 within 100 miles of me.
 
Production

Be patient, they will make more. Kind of 'in between' time right now.

If you really want one I will sell you mine ...
 
They are getting hard to find!
I just checked the inventory for around the Dallas/Ft. Worth area .......
17 dealerships
69 4Runners with 25 being Blizzard Pearl
and ZERO Trail Editions
 
Why are they hard to find in some areas???

I can only see three reasons for limiting where the Trail edition is available. The first two are based on the concept of stock turn-over. Dealers and Toyota don't want any vehicle to sit on the lot very long (it cost $$$ and doesn't look good). The third is a variant of this.

1) Demand for the Trail edition isn't doing good across the country. So Toyota is limiting them to where the sell best reducing how long they sit sit on the dealers lot. If this is the case, the Trail edition could go bye-bye, maybe bringing back the Sport.

2) Demand for the Trail edition isn't that popular in just certain areas and sits on the dealers lot longer than Toyota wants. To address this, Toyota limits them to other areas, forcing people to buy what the dealers have in stock and help with stock rotation.

3) Toyota doesn't want to let the Trail edition take sales from the FJ. I'm not too sure about this since, to me, the buyer of an FJ vs. 4Runner would seem to be two fairly different demographic groups.

Anyone have other reasons they can put forth why Toyota would do this. Since I'm currently trying to decide what to buy, this is of interest to me (I don't want to buy the last model year).
 
Supply problems could be one reason. Nav units and the off-road driving systems could be a problem to source, forcing them to hold the nav units for the Limited and suspend production for the Trail. Could be KDSS related or even something as mundane costs.

An early report mentioned that the Trail Edition was going to be some small percentage of the overall production, but my google-fu has grown weak lately and I can't find the article. If I remember correctly, it was 15%.
 
Couldn't find one in the Gulf States area!!! Tried also the mafia run SE states of Alabama and Georgia, but did not find one.
 
Here's my experience in finding a TE. I had been watching TEs since they came out last year. I pretty much gathered we weren't going to see a manual transmission again in the 4Runner so I decided to get a 2011. I still have my 99 SR5 with a 5 sp MT so in effect I now have 2 quite different cars. My 99 will remain the snow car since it doesn't seem to mind the MgCl they put on the highways here in the winter.

In mid-January my dealer in Kalispell looked at inventories for his region (Portland). They found a Shoreline Blue TE with just KDSS allocated to another dealer on a vessel bound for Portland. There were only 5 blue TEs onboard, 3 with KDSS/NAV and 2 with KDSS. He contacted the dealer and did a swap with a Limited in his allocation also on the vessel. Took just under 4 weeks to get the vehicle.

I am very pleased with the dealership and their willingness to get me what I wanted. I went the CostCo route which is just okay. Kalispell Toyota does the no haggle pricing bit which is about the same as you get with CostCo. 4Runners (SR5/TEs) are $1K over invoice, Limiteds are $1.2K. I think they get enough profit to stay in business.
 
I can only see three reasons for limiting where the Trail edition is available. The first two are based on the concept of stock turn-over. Dealers and Toyota don't want any vehicle to sit on the lot very long (it cost $$$ and doesn't look good). The third is a variant of this.

1) Demand for the Trail edition isn't doing good across the country. So Toyota is limiting them to where the sell best reducing how long they sit sit on the dealers lot. If this is the case, the Trail edition could go bye-bye, maybe bringing back the Sport.

....

I hope Toyota will not kill the TE. The Trail is the only trim I'm interested in, but I won't be ready to buy it until late this year. I could do without multi-terrain select but not the rest, like KDSS, body shape etc. Oh, well.
 
I am very pleased with the dealership and their willingness to get me what I wanted. I went the CostCo route which is just okay. Kalispell Toyota does the no haggle pricing bit which is about the same as you get with CostCo. 4Runners (SR5/TEs) are $1K over invoice, Limiteds are $1.2K. I think they get enough profit to stay in business.

Your dealer rocks, btw. We took my TE in for its 5k service while we were traveling and Kalispell Toyota was just plain awesome. Quick service, low prices, and really friendly people.
 
Since I purchased my trail in October of last year I had been checking the Houston, San Antionio and Corpus Christi areas and no trails. I was considering waiting for the 2011 at that time since they were just coming out. I'm glad I bought mine at that time or I still would not have one.
 
If you live in the Gulf state region, check out New Mexico, Colorado area for a Trail. I purchased my TE from Desert Sun Motors
 
Purchased a TE in central Ohio 3 weeks ago off the dealer's lot. Based on what I am reading on this thread I feel lucky!
 
It may pay to wait 3 or 4 months if you can. If gas gets to $4 or $5 like they are predicting there may be better deals on suvs.
 
i actually purchased one with the color (magnetic grey) and options (kdss) that i wanted last week. had been searching the southwest and mountain west for a while with no luck - they'd be listed on edmunds.com or the dealer's website, but when i'd call or visit the TE wouldn't be in stock. the one i found at larry miller toyota in peoria AZ wasn't even listed as a trail edition - just a "4runner 4WD". called for more info, and it happened to be exactly what i was looking for.

good luck!
 
OK one of hte main reasons it is hard to find the TE is that it is a limited production# vehicle. The same can be said about finding a TE FJ cruiser or Tacoma. Always meant to be a low production model with the special options only available in that package. It is also sent to dealerships that have historically more sales on the off-road packages or TE FJ's. When the FJ Trail Team came out it was only available in one Color Combination which also helped distinguish it from the other FJ cruiser.

Since Toyota has invested a lot of money into developing the Trail Team Editions for the FJ and then expanding it to the Tacoma and the 4 Runner. As well as sending a team of drivers and vehicles around to major events/ shows to show off the capability of the "package". I doubt Toyota has any plans of getting rid of the option since they are priding themselves for being the only true off-road capable import.

(Go ahead and flame for run on sentence or structure)
 

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