Trying to buy a new 2022 Toyota Corolla Hatchback SE with standard transmission.
Sticker has all these LIO (distributor installed options) that I don't want. A few are nice, but most are garbage pumping up the price. Dealer says they didn't put them on there, the distributor did, so they can't remove them.
Are they full of <expletive deleted> or not? Any tips on negotiating?
One more tidbit. If you are buying new, there is no option but to buy from the dealer because of stupid, archaic, laws that give dealers and oligopooly.
IMHO, the best thing to do to get the best price is to compare a bunch of dealers. They pretty much all are horrible, but hopefully one of them will be less horrible.
Tell them to go pound sand and find somebody else honest to sell you a car, or order exactly the vehicle you want.
I tried, but how? Toyota.com just sends me to dealers.
Toyota and Honda are based on allocation system. So best one can do is telling dealership what they want and waiting to see if the dealership comes across one or the closest to what they want.
So there are different regional distributors for Toyota and some of them decide to add port installed options. Those port installed options are present on the monroney sticker that comes from the factory. So you being told that something is port/distributor installed is not a lie (check the monroney sticker). Anything the dealership adds will be added on a second sticker and not on the monroney sticker. For example Southeast Toyota distributors is very well known for adding a ton of additional profit making items on the vehicles they distribute and it is on the monroney sticker too.
So...try different dealerships in the hopes they have a different distributor? Or is it by area aka I'm forced to buy them?
Where are located? If you are in states where for example Southeast Toyota is the distributor then you're stuck with them. What you can do is try to negotiate the price of those additional items with the dealership or see if the dealership will accept to tell the distributor to not add those items (which is very unlikely in this market so don't keep your hopes high).
Texas. The dealer didn't budge an inch and refunded me my deposit without any resistance.
They are dealer add-ons and from my perspective a scam. Stating it's the "distributor" is total nonsense. Either they added them on, or they bought the vehicle like that.
Speaking for myself, if they won't drop the price I would drop them and move on to another dealership.
Because they are hunting for manual transmission, they are saying they have to buy it from the distributor like that.
If you go to a dealer, you can order exactly what you want.
So I've called around all the dealers and...would you believe it, the one I was with offered the best prices.
If you have not already done so you could expand your search outside of your immediate area. Might be worth driving a few hours if you can save enough money on the deal.
I've even called places 130+ miles away...same thing.
Standard dealer shenanigans.
Let is know if you can negotiate your way out of them, or at least down from their over-priced add on.
So I've called around all the dealers and...would you believe it, the one I was with offered the best prices. They all use the same distributor, and so it really is a no win situation.
But I already walked away so there is the matter of my pride...