Sudden Difficulty with Out of State Dealers

It's been mentioned a few times, but the reason is 100% due to the dealer wanting service business. Local purchases drive service sales. Even if it's just the included ToyotaCare appts before someone starts doing their own maintenance or has a local mechanic who does their work, they will AT LEAST bring the vehicle in for the first few service appts and any warranty work that needs to be done since it's free to them. The dealer gets paid by Toyota for all of that even if the owner isn't paying anything.

Local cars also often come with trade ins, which helps their inventory, as well as possibly making you into a future customer for your next vehicle.

Why would they sell to someone from out of town when they have enough local demand that comes with additional revenue? As a business it just makes sense to keep the business in your local community until supply increases and they are more concerned with just pushing out volume.

 

I can definitely see that point of view as well. But at least with the latest one I found in Chicago (I'm in Ohio), it's been on their site for about a week now, and as of this morning has yet to be reserved, by a local or out of stater. Had they agreed to let me reserve it without telling me to give them $4k more, they would have had a guaranteed sale on their hands.

I get that the $4k markup will help them "regain" some of the possibly lost future revenue, but if a highly sought after vehicle hasn't been reserved or purchased after a week of being available, maybe you cut the losses on this one and guarantee a sale.

 

One of the smaller market dealers from central Illinois said they are restricting to 50 miles exactly for that reason that they want to get the servicing and trade in for the local market. Also they said that they would only consider going outside the 50 miles once the vehicle makes it on their lot and sits for about 2 months.

I mean it makes sense to me but just sucks!

 

I understand the love of Toyota’s but I don’t get paying over msrp by 4,000+ on something that looses value.

 

Agree, which is why i refuse to pay over MSRP..

 

same.

 

When I bought my new Tundra in May of 2021, I couldn't get one locally. The dealer in Coeur d'Alene, ID had 6-10 trucks on the lot at all times over the course of 3-4 months, and all of them were always spoken for. They even left them on their website, but I was told a few times that I would have to order one, and it would be 4 plus months. I went to Spokane, WA and the dealer there had two for sale. The crewmax still had the plastic on it, and was cement in color, so I bought it instead of the DC

The salesman there told me they would've had a couple more, but people were buying them like crazy, taking them to Arizona and California, then flipping them for a 3-5k markup.

 

For what it's worth - I just purchased (picked up Yesterday) a Limited Crewmax 4x4 out of state - 2 states over - I inquired about the listing on their site a few weeks back - and they let me know they were holding it in case any locals were in the market after a bought of hail storms - Last weekend they called me back to see if I was interested, and I swooped in. There was a bit of a dealer markup, but worth it in my opinion to get the truck I wanted. I flew out yesterday and drove it home 4 1/2 hours. Drove it up to the top of a 14,000 mountain above Denver today. Love it so far!

 

Hopefully policies like this will come back to bite these shady dealers in the butts. I've only ever bought one vehicle locally, everything else I've purchased sight unseen out of state, wired them the money, then flown in and driven the vehicle home. I'm an airline pilot so I fly for free. No vehicle of mine has ever seen the inside of a dealership's service department (excepting the 25,000 mile oil changes) so they weren't going to get the service work anyway.

In times like these dealers can get away with scummy policies like this and people will still buy from them. When inventories get back to normal levels and they're begging for sales hopefully these bad dealerships will sink.

 

Jerren, I'm only 3 weeks into my wait with Cedar Park for a Hybrid Platinum. How high in the management team and who did you speak to during your four month wait before pulling out? As it goes along I'll give my sales person an opportunity to keep me in the loop but it'd be nice to know what kind of reception I can expect from the higher ups.

 

I didn’t really try and go too high In the chain of command my sales guy didn’t really seem to have much knowledge on the process just kept saying I’m on the list and wasn’t able to tell me much more then that. I tried to speak to the allocation manager and could never be put in touch with him/her always “out”. My dealer in Kansas was great in and out experience flew in and drove home same day. When I got back I took my new truck to get my deposit back.

 

Eddys Toyota of Wichita my salesman’s name is mason!

 

In reading this thread, I don't understand all the heartburn from people with dealers choosing to sell locally. I definitely wouldn't call this practice "shady" by any means. Personally, I respect my local dealer for having such a policy. If the supply is so limited that they can't fulfill the needs locally, I wouldn't be very happy if they were selling to someone from another state while I am right here trying to buy it.

 

I guess win/win for buyer and dealer then, makes sense. Still no complaining from me, I like it.

 

FWIW...Idaho is very accommodating to out of state buyers.