I went to the bank and got pre-authorized for a nice-sized car loan. It was surprisingly painless. My loan officer recently bought exactly the same truck I'm after (a Tacoma) and took the time to discuss all the various options with me, what was worth it, what wasn't, etc. She also pointed me to carbuyingtips.com, which was very educational. Now I feel like I won't get as screwed when I talk to dealers.
She surprised me when she listed the options she got on her new Tacoma, and the price she payed—it was comparable to the prices I was seeing on CarMax for cars that were a few years old and had ~30k miles on them. She recommended I at least try negotiating for new trucks with the "local" Toyota dealerships and see how the numbers compare to the various used offerings.
Step one was to go to Toyota's website and pick out what the ideal Tacoma for me would be. This basically comes down to a 2006 Tacoma 4x4 Access Cab with 6-speed manual transmission, the TRD off-road options package, and the towing package.
Step two was to go to a wide variety of online car dealerships and get quotes. I also had the online places put in quote requests to all of the Toyota dealerships near me. Now I wait for the quotes to come in, and I start running the numbers to figure out A) what is their actual profit and B) on which line items is the profit being charged to me?
First to respond was a Toyota dealer in Roswell who gave me quotes on two Tacomas. One of them didn't have the off-road options which I want, and was basically irrelevant. The other one had exactly what I wanted, but also included a 6-disc CD changer, a spare tire lock, and tinted windows. The numbers indicated that he was either charging me $900 for tinted windows, or had an inflated sense of fair profit. I asked for a new quote with itemized fees and option charges.
Next response was from Karl Malone Toyota in Albuquerque (Do I get to meet Karl Malone if I buy from them? I think I should get to. Way more interesting than the set of $170 floor mats they tried to hawk me...). Malone did a nice job of itemizing their costs. However, this exposed the fact that they were charging me MSRP for all of the options. They also didn't include the off-road package that I require, so the car they quoted me is basically not suitable. They also included several options packages that I didn't ask for, but used the manufacturers codes to describe them so I don't know what they are (LF and CF). There are line items for "Dealer Holdback" and "Wholesale Financial Reserve," which are classic dealer scam fees, but they didn't have a value next to them. Perhaps this was an indication that they wouldn't charge me for them—but then why not put $0.00? I asked for clarification and a quote on a car that includes all of the options I asked for.
Once I amass a few quotes from local dealers on the truck I want, where they aren't trying to rip me off with 9% dealer profit margins and MSRP option pricing, I'll take my show on the road and bring these estimates down to the three dealerships within reasonable driving distance of my house. I'll keep you posted.
UPDATE:
Karl Malone writes back (I like to think that I'm actually corresponding with Karl himself, and he's just using the pseudonym "Ian.") with two more car quotes. The first one also does not include the off-road package I specifically mentioned being a requirement in my last email. The second one lumps on about $1000 worth of extra options I don't want. And now, there are numbers on the scam fee line items totalling nearly $700! I gave him a piece of my mind on the fees and told him to try again.
UPDATE 2:
After complaining to Karl about the glut of unwanted options in his quotes, he wrote back to tell me that these were the only two choices Toyota offered. Furthermore, he ignored my comments about the fees. I made one final ultimatum low-ball offer and am now of the opinion that this guy is not interested in selling cars to non-suckers.
Wow. I had much more success with internet quotes last summer for my Mazda3. It might be an area thing -- maybe dealers in SoCal are more resigned to savvy shoppers on the internet?
I _really_ appreciated Edmunds.com. I sent my email requests through them, and got a bunch of really straightforward responses from fleet/internet managers. If nothing else, I recommend checking their TMV (true market value) number.
What made you decide to buy new? I understand that you need reliability a few sigma up from normal (though I would enjoy reading a post titled "My 40 mile hike back to the Highway"), but my experience instructs that for almost all cars there's a sweet spot just after the steepest part of the depreciation curve -- still lots of life left at half the price.
That, when combined with the savings of a private party sale, makes me want never to buy from a dealer. The light truck market could be a different beast entirely... just curious.
Once, while highpointing in nowheresville, New Mexico, I managed to high-center Nina's Corolla in a snow bank and hiked 20 miles to some farm house, where a couple of old people called their son to come with his giant pickup and pull my car free. It was exhausting, embarrassing, and I never want to do that again.
Though this has little to do with my decision to buy new. I know what kind of truck I want, and finding a used one with the options I want is proving to be very difficult. It seems that since a good Taco will last for upwards of 300,000 miles and the demographic of people who buys them don't tend to be the sort to shuffle through cars really fast, the only used ones on the market are almost new or completely decrepit. Besides, the price of a new Tacoma (properly haggled) isn't really all that much higher than a used one a few years old. They retain their value extremely well.
And yeah, I want to be able to take this thing on jeep trails and go mountaineering without having to wonder if I'll need to eat my climbing partner to make it out alive.
Because you're looking for all the goodies, you will get the run-around. There's no way to avoid that, unfortunately.
The biggest problem with the add-ons is they're often lumped into "option" packages that aren't ever itemized. Do argue those points first, though.
The Taco (and especially the TRD) isn't a high-volume vehicle, so you should have no problem whittling a dealer down if you stick to your guns. Odds are good that a TRD will sit on the lot for a good three or four weeks before being sold, so don't take any crap that they're selling like hotcakes and you need to lock in your vote now.
Also, if they offer it (and if you don't mind getting your car serviced in $BFE) the prepaid maintenance plan that Toyota sells is actually a fairly good deal. The extended warranty, of course, is not.