You won't regret it.
sff
If you have already bought the car you are stuck, other wise go to another dealer.
If i buy a later model used car i have to get it fianiced so i also get an extended waranty on it and it has more than paid off nearly everytime. but i don`t buy nothing else that the law don`t demand.
I drove toyotas for several years, they were the best of foriegn cars in the seventies.
Consider leasing a new Toyota Camry for three years.
Relatively small down payment and a small monthly payment gets you into a new car.
The warranty probably covers all repairs for the three years—you just change the oil.
At the end of three years, you bring it in, and lease another one.
You will be current in safety and technology that way.
You might say, but then I don’t own anything. But owning a car is merely owning a constantly depreciating asset, and you play Russian roulette the older it gets and the more miles you put on it.
After over 40 years of owning and leasing cars, I have found that cars are a necessary evil. They depreciate, and the longer you have them, the more breaks down on them.
Having a leased car, especially a Toyota, practically guarantees you no downtime for repairs during the lease period.
If you don’t have small kids or pets, and know how to keep a car clean, and don’t drive 20,000 miles a year, there will not be any problems with leasing.
You can buy additional miles/year if the offered miles is too low.
When you consider the costs of down payments, depreciation and repairs, leasing is very attractive. The leases for less expensive cars,like the Camry are very good deals.
You can own one car and lease another.
What I have learned is that you can love a car, but they don’t love you back—no matter how well you care for them they break down over time. Sometimes at the worst times and in the worst circumstances.
They are transportation.
If you find you really, really like the car, at the end of three years, you can buy the car/or finance the purchase of it.
If not, you are not married to the car and at the end of the lease period you give it back.
A Camry lease will run you about $2,000 down and low $200’s a month or even less. Much better than putting a large down payment down and paying a high monthly loan rate and interest.
Also, no hassles with selling the car when you lease.
You sell your used car to a dealer, you get hosed. You sell to the public, you might get killed.
A car is not an investment, unless it is a surefire collectible, but then you don’t want to drive a collectible every day and lessen it’s value.
If you lease get GAP insurance from the dealer. I get it from the dealer, and then I have my auto insurer also add it to my policy—like $13/year. But if you total the car, here are no hassles as to the value of the car versus the lease amount owed.
Best of luck to you.
Having sold Toyota’s for a living, I can tell you this is Horsepuckey. The certified used vehicle status means nothing more than the vehicle was thoroughly gone over. Don’t fall for it and save yourself $1500 bucks. If the dealer was reputable, this would have been done automatically. The nitrogen in the tires is another thing. It’s supposed to extend the life of the rims by preventing rust. So every time you need to inflate your tires you have to ad nitrogen. The costs ads up and you could have replaced the rims for a lot less over the lifetime of the vehicle. Do yourself a favor and walk away from this dealership. Don’t go back.
As buyer, you call the shots.
The best advice I can think of is, you must be prepared to walk if you don’t like the deal, even if you ‘love’ the car.
Just as importantly, the salesman must understand that you are prepared to walk.
And if you don’t get the deal you want, walk away.
Advice:
1. Walk away and never go back to that dealer.
2. Consider using the services of a dealer agent: one who, for a fee, will purchase a used vehicle for you from the dealer only car auctions.
3. Consider buying something other than a toyota. The reality is they aren’t as stellar a vehicle as they used to be. And you pay a pretty penny for that brand name. Consumer reports has good used car reliability info for the type of car and years you’re thinking of.
4. Warehouse clubs like costco and Sams have used car buying services. They deal with the dealers so you don’t have to.
When I bought my 4 cyl 2003 Honda Accord some 2 years ago, the dealer would give me a price and the interest rate for 36 months and I would reject it. He would step out of the room then come back a bit later with a different price and interest price. On and on.
It was always the same price in the end. About $8,000 plus tax.
I bet they have charts with the rates and make side bets with the other dealers on how they can get more money out of you. The price in the end was fine as I had looked and looked for that car and the price was about the same from a dealer as a private seller. The car runs great.
I had to put in a .54 cent O-ring for the power steering hose because of a known problem with air leak plus later the a/c clutch would not always engage and that was fixed for about $330. The armrest was replaced by me for about $120 as the top was cracked. Otherwise it has needed just oil and rotate the tires. I figure I got 1 to 2 more years for the brakes.
11 Confessions of a Car Dealer
Don’t go car shopping without already having a price.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a16184/confessions-of-a-car-dealer/
Behind the Scenes at a Car Dealership
http://www.edmunds.com/car-buying/behind-the-scenes-at-a-car-dealership.html
Cars like real estate, trade at prices based on “comparables” more or less.
With cars some dealers will assume the buyer doesn’t even know what they should pay, and will do like your dealer did with this vehicle.
Do your homework, know what the vehicle should be sold for and make your offer.
Be prepared to walk away if they refuse to negotiate a fair price.
You won't regret it.
run
Find a trusted mechanic and buy private. You should be able to narrow down your choices of Toyota then pay the mechanic $100 or so to do a full diagnostics. Dealers have always been, and always will be, a ripoff. $500 to transfer the title? What BS.
Read this book:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1459719409
Either go to your local library or buy a copy. This is the single most valuable book every written for used and new car buying guidance.
Figure out what models and model years you are interested in and then google what you are looking for. A hundred mile radius is reasonable to look at.
Zero in on a dealership or two that have what you are looking for. Use the CarFax history for used cars to figure out how long the car has been sitting on the dealer’s lot, which will tell you how desperate they are to sell it.
Call and talk to the dealership manager (never a floor salesman) and agree to a bottom line price, less ONLY sales tax. Then drive to look at the car.
I bought a GREAT very low mileage Honda Accord LX luxury sedan certified preowned auto that had a one-lease user with great Honda factory warranty for $16,000.00 that way from a dealer located about 4 hours from where I live.
I had the service manager put the car on the rack so I could look underneath. The thing looked brand new, not even any scrapes on the front cowling, and the service manager was a WAY better salesman than the nimrods milling about in the showroom, showing me all of the great mechanical features of the car.
Bttt
They playing you big time. Walk away. Shady AF.
Toyotas are great; buy one elsewhere. While walking away generally gets them to drop the price a bit, if they have enough suckers they can let you walk.
After my last new car purchase, I learned a lot about bumping and the Texas law on auto contracts. So Florida contract law may be different. I will never set foot inside this dealer again due to the practices of upper management (they are to blame, the low lifes below them just play along for the paycheck).
Lesson One: never buy a car from any dealer that has a line item preprinted on the sales form anything like “Dealer Prep” or the like. My dealer charged $499 for a whole litany of things that reputable dealer in DFW do for free. And never pay for nitrogen, but allow it if free.
Lesson Two: I was working with a new sales rep. When I finally came in to pick the car up, after a month of negotiations, they gave the sale to another sales rep that had been there longer. In short, they scammed their own sales reps!
Lesson Three: Do not believe anything that the finance guys tell you. If your finance guy tells you that a charge for something is “customary”, then that is strike one. If he tells you that the extended warranty is 15% of the dealer cost, then strike two. In fact, I will now walk out at that point. Which leads us to ...
Lesson Four: NEVER sign anything they put in front of you until YOU are satisfied. In Texas auto law, there is no “three day signing period” (but there is on real estate transactions). That nagging feeling in the back of your mind? Listen to it and walk out. Make them sweat. Sorry for the poor sales rep but this is your money.
We still make and sell ~15 million new cars in the US every year. If it just doesn't seem right then find another dealer that wants your business.
It never hurts to find a friend at church to go with you to the dealer. Just have them listen in, and tap you on the shoulder if they get the willies. At least one person needs to be there just to watch out for you.
I know of a dealership that used to have the reputation of being fair and easy to deal with, but lost a lot of goodwill because of one manager who was a scruple-free slimeball with a thermonuclear sense of self importance and a great ability to manipulate people. The guy basically bullied the rest of the place into either quitting or becoming his minions, and the actual owners didn't have a clue until an incident occurred which could not be covered up or papered over. It proved to be a costly interlude, because a fair number of potential and former customers were willing to drive the distance to other dealerships or turn to other makes.
Mr. niteowl77
If there is a sticker/tag on a vehicle that claims dealer certified, etc., take a picture of it before beginning to talk to anyone about the vehicle.
I always have trouble with trusting used cars - so many crooked dealers out there that one can never be sure - get a good mechanic to do a bump[er to m=bumper inspection before buying one.
CarMax is a ripoff. Buy from a private seller and just take the car to your mechanic for an inspection first. Only suckers buy a used car from a dealer.