Hell Is Buying a Used Toyota...

[Ten Ninety]

I am now the proud owner of a 17-plate Prius PHV in Hypersonic Red. Generally speaking, I don’t like red cars, but for some reason I like this one. I'm sure I will be posting more about it in due course. Here's a nice picture of it:

However, the process of getting to the stage where this particular car is sitting on my drive has been nothing less than tortuous. What I was expecting to be a joyful process full of anticipatory excitement turned out to be an arduous and depressing slog, as my wife and I travelled hundreds of miles around the country seeking the 'right' car, only to discover an almost-uniformly awful experience at each Toyota dealership we visited.

I should perhaps point out that this is likely to be a long post, written more for my own cathartic benefit than for anyone else's interest, so here’s the tl;dr up front, to save you the effort of reading through the drivel beneath:

Uninterested, uninformed dealers making half-hearted attempts to sell cars, often in worryingly-dubious condition, for staggeringly random prices.

Anyway, if you do want to read on, here's the unexpurgated version. It's not pretty...

To start with, what the juddering hell is the deal with pricing on these cars? It's insane. Brand spanking new Prius Excel PHVs are available through Carwow for £27.5k, so why would anyone pay more than that for a used one with a few thousand miles on it? Yet we found tens for sale, well above that price point. The bizarrely specific numbers like £28,471 suggested some kind of machine-learning algorithm at play. I can only assume this was locked in some kind of infinite rank-ordering comparison loop, as I actually saw individual vehicle prices going up as well as down in the time I was monitoring them. Unsurprisingly, these optimistically-priced specimens are all still for sale now, having spent months on forecourts already. I am utterly baffled at what is happening here.

Even more mystifying was the price differential between apparently identical cars. We found cars with the same specs, age and mileage, for sale at up to £5k difference in sticker price. In one case, this difference was between two cars at the same dealership! Granted, the cheaper one was in Dishwasher White but even so, you've got to really hate kitchen appliances to pay five large more for Decuma Grey, right? Price had seemingly no bearing on condition, either. And, on the subject of condition, the state we found some of these cars in was shockingly poor, given that they were all Toyota Approved cars with minimal miles, less than 18 months old. 

The first one we saw had done fewer than 2,000 miles yet looked like it had done ten times that; it was covered in scratches inside and out, with big chips of paint missing from the front bumper. The driver's door looked like it had repeatedly been opened into a brick wall, and was down to the bare metal along its edge. Yet the conversation that followed went roughly like this:

"The car is priced taking its condition into account."

"Okay, but if we agree to buy it, will you get your bodyshop to sort the worst bits of the paintwork out before we collect?"

"The car is priced taking its condition into account."

"That’s a no, then?"

"The car is priced taking its condition into account."

"And you're not prepared to make any kind of reduction to account for the poor condition, to cover the cost of getting it sorted ourselves?"

"The car is priced taking its condition into account."

"Right. Bye, then."

Then there was the one that turned out to have done over 3,000 miles more than advertised, with a replacement windscreen that had somehow been re-fitted with no seals around it, leaving huge gaps and the plastic scuttle flapping in the breeze, along with two strips of glue residue on the roof from where they'd used the wrong tape to hold it in.

"Don't worry, we'll get the workshop to look at the windscreen and get it sorted for you before you pick up the car."

"Right. Would that be the same workshop that made such a godforsaken mess of it the first time around?"

"Er, yes..."

"Er, bye then."

And then there was the one that had a big dent in the lower side panel, and which had been run by the dealership boss for 18 months but somehow hadn't been serviced at all in that time.

"Don't worry, we'll fix the dent with a bit of filler and we'll service it before you buy it. The manufacturer's warranty will be fine."

"You mean the warranty that Toyota specifically state will not be fine, as any items which fail in future as a possible result of lack of servicing will not be covered?"

"No, it will be fine. Let me get my service manager to explain why both you and the Toyota website are wrong about this."

"No, let me get my coat, and remind me never to assume that Toyota dealers understand their own service intervals and warranty conditions."

Still, if some of the cars were poor, the actual experiences and interactions in the showrooms were worse. Here's a flavour of what we endured:

• Being left waiting for ages whilst the salesman 'found the best price' for my car, only for him to finally come out and offer £1k less than we both knew it was worth. Pro-tip: We all know you can look up a valuation in 30 seconds. If you're going to bid me in the nuts for my car, at least have the common decency not to make me wait for half an hour before you do. Especially not when you're keeping me from my lunch.
• Being seated directly in front of glass pane windows, squinting into the baking sun, in a showroom that inexplicably didn't have air conditioning, waiting for the salesperson to arrive whilst being forcibly engaged in toe-curlingly banal conversation by a painfully enthusiastic teenager wearing a Badge that actually – I kid you not – gave his job title as Host. Pro-tip. Try to ensure you offer a buying experience that doesn't run the risk of contravening the Geneva Convention as a form of cruel and unusual punishment. You may just sell more cars.
• Being told that the person I'd agreed to meet at the specified time wasn't available, being asked to wait until someone else could see us, then being dealt with by a surly, uncommunicative teenager who had no interest in selling the car and whose knowledge about the product he was supposed to be persuading us to buy was utterly non-existent. He even checked his phone a few times during our conversation. Pro-tip: If you really must employ useless millennials who can't grasp the concept of turning up at an agreed time and place, at least make sure the backup isn't a social media addict from Generation Zombie.
• Being told that the dealership couldn't provide a valuation for my car at all, unless I first agreed I would definitely buy their car from them and not go elsewhere. Pro-tip. That. Is. Not. How. It. Works. You've just let me walk away, and I will not be coming back. Ever. You can call me all you like the day after. But, just as you discovered, I won't be answering.
• Being told that my wife couldn't sit next to me in the front for the test drive as the salesman had to be there in case he needed to 'grab the wheel' when I was driving. Pro-tip: Try to avoid insulting your customer's driving ability before they've even got in the car. Oh, and never let my wife ride behind you when you've just ****** her off. We nearly did crash in the end, because I was too busy laughing at her in the rear view mirror as she made gestures behind your back suggesting your proclivity for indulging in onanistic pleasure. Frankly, you were lucky she didn't garotte you with your spivvy skinny tie.
• Being told that there was 'no room for negotiation' on the initial cost to change you offered. Pro-tip: There is always room for negotiation. Otherwise *cough* you might end up with your car still on your forecourt, at a *cough* considerably reduced price that is now hilariously less than what I was actually willing to pay you weeks ago. Ha ha ha and, indeed, ha.
• Being told on the phone that I had to pay a £100 'refundable deposit' in order to make sure the car would be available to view the next day. Pro-tip: Wait, what? I don't even… kthxbye.

Even when we actually found a car in decent nick that wasn't horrifically overpriced, defective or abused, it was a struggle to complete the purchase. I think it was the young salesman's first ever experience of dealing with someone who didn't want finance. Or possibly just his first ever experience of selling a car. He was giddy with excitement, which was actually quite endearing at first. We finally agreed a price that I was happy to pay, shook hands on the deal, then he went round the back to get the paperwork. All seemed to be going well.

Then he returned, looking very sheepish and informed us that we'd have to pay £1 more than we'd just agreed. He explained that he'd exceeded the amount by which he was 'allowed' to discount the car, so would we mind paying a pound more? After my wife and I realised that he wasn't actually joking, we obviously told him to do one. A gentleman does not renege on a handshake, FFS! However, I did generously agree to sign the paperwork for the higher amount if he gave me a quid from his own pocket there and then. Panicking now, and not having any cash himself, he was out of ideas so I suggested he went round the back for a whip-round. I fully expected him to return with a handful of loose change. However, he eventually came back having apparently got permission to put the lower amount through on the card machine whilst keeping the extra £1 on the paperwork.

Seriously, that happened.

In all honesty, if we hadn't have closed the deal on that one then we'd probably have just thrown in the towel and bought a brand new one on finance. I have a sneaky suspicion that this may actually have been Toyota's plan all along: overprice your used stock and make the buying-for-cash experience so awful that people give up and finance a new one instead.

I’m glad we didn't, as I've ended up with what seems to be a decent example, obtained in the end for a fair price. But next time? I'm not sure I'll have the energy. I might just have to accept that long-term ownership is a dying scene, and give in and join the masses on their 3-year contracts and monthly payments...

[Heidfirst]

Congrats on the new car, 🙂  I hope that you enjoy it a lot more than the route to it.

Some of the pricing issues may be down to the fact that there has been more demand for Prius than supply so they have a limited quota for new & haven't needed to discount so nearly news for immediate delivery maintain a high value.

Re. "Host" - in addition to salespeople my dealer has a "Product Specialist" (on his top/jacket) who, when I was buying my latest Avensis, I was able to show features/things to that he was unaware of ... by the end of it he was asking me questions about the Avensis ... 🤣

Sounds like you are largely like me - does your research beforehand & wants a fairly straight forward transaction. As a former (not car) sales person/manager/director I understand that they need to make a profit if I want a level of service in the future so realise that I am not the best at absolutely !Removed! the last penny out of the deal but nor will I be taken for a fool. I have previously been in a position where a dealership had a car on the forecourt that I would have bought on the spot but imo was overpriced by £500 - I should never have left that dealership without buying it but I was allowed to ... 😲 (seems to be a standard thing at that dealership as on my latest purchase they were ~ £500 dearer for literally the same car within the same group as the dealership that I bought from - it was in stock at a 3rd branch 100s of miles away).

My successful salesman was actually pretty good (not a pimply youth & quite experienced in other industries too), realised that I was clued up & basically by the end we had agreed what I believe was a fair price for both for the transaction. I even told him what price I expected to see my partX on their forecourt for (I was £100 out, sold very quickly & they made a healthy profit)! 😛

[CPN]

Excellent post and some salutary tales!

Our dealer here, has been better than that so far. However, today, we got an early morning wake up call from them!

I didn't recognise the voice but he sounded very young and a bit nervous. He then proceeded to explain to us that they had this super duper new piece of software that was able to work out the right time for customers like us to change our car for the best price! Yeah right!!

He went on to suggest that we could have the exact same car to the same spec brand new and only need to pay an extra £40 more per month than we are paying now!! [emoji848]

So I said to him, "Now let me get this straight? You want me to buy the exact same car that is not actually an upgrade from what we have now and pay more for it?" His response? "Well, you will be getting a brand new car."! Since he hadn't bothered to do his homework properly, I didn't bother to remind him about the main road tax dodging reason why we had changed to our current car when we did last year! [emoji16]




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[FROSTYBALLS]

We change both of our cars every three years or so. Poor experiences include:

¤ when we were looking to change a 3 year old Nissan for another, the finance manager wouldn't let the salesperson quote for a part exchange because we didn't want a PCP. We left and bought our first Corolla. 

¤ two years later went to a Toyota dealer to buy another Corolla as a second car. Same dealer group as above - same finance manager as above. Told us his finance rate, and we said we could get cheaper through our bank. Told us to go elsewhere - which we did. We knew the dealer principal, and when we said they had lost a sale due to the finance manager, the finance manager was transferred out within days. 

¤ we had arranged a test drive of a new Mazda when we were looking to change an existing Mazda. When we turned up at the allotted time, we were told the salesperson was out on another test drive. We waited for 20 minutes. No-one approached us to ask whether we wanted help. We left.

¤ we had arranged to test drive the Corolla and Corolla Verso. When we got to the dealer, only the Corolla was available. We asked to see how the rear seats folded in the Verso. Battery was flat so they couldn't open the tailgate. The salesperson folded the middle row of seats forward, knelt on the back of the drivers side seat to fold the rearmost seats forward, there was an almighty crack as they broke the seat back of the middle seat, and it wouldn't go upright again. We went elsewhere and bought a Corolla.

¤ same dealer three years later. Looking to change the Corolla and booked a test drive. Arrived at the dealer, and they weren't expecting us. Took us out in a customer's new Auris the customer was collecting the next day. We haven't been back since. 

[PeteB]

6 hours ago, Ten Ninety said:

...what the juddering hell is the deal with pricing on these cars? It's insane. Brand spanking new Prius Excel PHVs are available through Carwow for £27.5k, so why would anyone pay more than that for a used one with a few thousand miles on it?...

That reminds me of the situation when I bought my first Gen 1 Prius in 2002 - I had a test drive in 2000 when they launched and was very tempted, but wasn't prepared to have a car with no heated mirrors (not been without these since mid 1980s!) or rear wiper.

Two years later though, the Hybrid system was SO appealing I took another test drive and decided I could just about manage without them (although for the next 9 years I regularly cursed their absence).

However, in those days, the Hybrid system's reliability longer term was unknown and a perceived risk factor, so I decided to look at ex-demos to reduced the amount of cash I was risking if it turned out to be a lemon (seems silly now, I know).

A new Gen 1 was £16½k, with a £1k government grant towards it, so a true cost of £15½k.  Most 6 month old/6,000 ish mile demos were ... £16k+ - same insane pricing!

Eventually, I found a dealer 100 miles away with an 18 month old/18k car for £12k.  They were not too far from my parents, so I went and had a look during one of my monthly weekend visits and ended up buying the car.

In those days, before the 2004 model year Gen 2 Prius was launched, only 60 dealers could service or sell the Prius.  Fortunately, the people at this dealer seemed to know a lot about the Prius, and it turned out much of the mileage on it was from the sales team taking it home evenings and weekends because they found it so interesting!

I've stayed with this dealer ever since, bought 5 cars from them (2 others were ex-demos), all my servicing (plus that of some company cars and my former partner's Toyotas), all my tyres, and recommend a number of people who've become customers.  They've been 100% reliable, very easy to deal with and fair handed, and I feel I've been very lucky with them when I read of people's experiences with other dealers, like the saga here.

[Duffryn]

Some 10 years ago was looking for a nearly new Avensis, spotted one at a dealer 50 miles from my home, went for a look, and it would have suited me. However the salesman wouldn't give me anywhere near market price for my trade-in (3 yr old Honda Civic) because he didn't like it's colour. Insulting and unbelievable. Goodbye dealer.

 

[PeteB]

When I bought my Gen 4 I wasn't expecting any discount because I placed my order before they were actually able to process it (Feb 2016), but without being asked they gave me a tiny discount, full tank and free velour mats.  None of the web based firms would quote for a Gen 4 at the time.

I got a price for my 4 year old Gen 3 Prius from WBAC at the same time, and it did beat the dealer's price but not by enough to make up for the inconvenience of selling it separately.  However, during the 4 month wait for my car, WBAC regularly emailed to say the value had fallen (especially in March when the new registration plate came out), and by the time my dealer said my new car was ready the WBAC price was lower than my dealer's.  Plus I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd found one or two reasons to drop further when they examined the car (although it looked perfect to me).

I was really pleased when the dealer said they'd honour their original price, and the handover was painless - arrived in old car, drove away in new.  The agonising 4 month wait was quickly forgotten.

[Ten Ninety]

Well, it's reassuring to know that my experiences were not just the result of me being an unreasonable ****. 

22 hours ago, Heidfirst said:

Some of the pricing issues may be down to the fact that there has been more demand for Prius than supply so they have a limited quota for new & haven't needed to discount so nearly news for immediate delivery maintain a high value.

I reckon you could be right with regard to the standard hybrid, but I'm not so sure about the PHV - I don't think it's anywhere near as popular. I specifically asked all the dealers whether they'd sold many and the universal response was no. I found that deeply ironic given the general reluctance to negotiate on price! 

19 hours ago, FROSTYBALLS said:

¤ we had arranged to test drive the Corolla and Corolla Verso. When we got to the dealer, only the Corolla was available. We asked to see how the rear seats folded in the Verso. Battery was flat so they couldn't open the tailgate. The salesperson folded the middle row of seats forward, knelt on the back of the drivers side seat to fold the rearmost seats forward, there was an almighty crack as they broke the seat back of the middle seat, and it wouldn't go upright again. We went elsewhere and bought a Corolla.

LOL. I think the salesperson destroying the car they're trying to sell probably trumps anything I experienced! 

16 hours ago, PeteB said:

I've stayed with this dealer ever since, bought 5 cars from them (2 others were ex-demos), all my servicing (plus that of some company cars and my former partner's Toyotas), all my tyres, and recommend a number of people who've become customers.  They've been 100% reliable, very easy to deal with and fair handed, and I feel I've been very lucky with them when I read of people's experiences with other dealers, like the saga here.

Guessing from your location, is that the one in Norwich? We had decent experiences with them servicing our Corolla back when we lived up there, but they've yet to ever have the right car in stock at the right time! 

[PeteB]

1 hour ago, Ten Ninety said:

Guessing from your location, is that the one in Norwich?

...but they've yet to ever have the right car in stock at the right time! 

Yep, that's the one.  For a few years they've also had a branch up the road in Lowestoft, but I've had such a good relationship with the people in Norwich I've stayed with them.

In fact, when I bought my Gen 3 Prius, I wan't planning to, but whilst in for a service or something I bumped into my salesman and stopped for a chat.  The original Gen 3 Prius didn't have a combination that suited me, but the post 2012 facelift versions did - so I almost jokingly told him to let me know if they got a T3 in white with the Infotainment upgrade package as a demonstrator to let me know.  Be both laughed knowing the chances were virtually nil, but he phoned me a day or two later to say they actually had one as a business demonstrator on loan to a local radio station, and I could have it when it was 6 months old.  The price was right, they added the cruise control switch and I got a 6 month old car with 3½k on the clock for a very good price.

This is what it looked like when I took it for a test drive:

[Chris Dance]

Ja, that looks a nice car you have bought.  Hard to believe all the hassle you have had.

We had a young new salesman dealing with us at our local dealer on one occasion. A very experienced salesman spotted us and came and took over. He new we were previous customers. We have never experienced the trouble you had.

We wanted a Prius PHV. We even had a charging point put  in our garage at home. When we visited the dealer with intention of trying to do a deal. I found out the Prius PHV did not have a spare wheel.( My niece spent hours on a cold early morning with "gunge" all over her after she had a puncture.)

On a previous Prius we owned I hit a "hidden" kerb and got a flat front tyre. It was about midnight. The AA were good and arrived fairly quickly; the wheel was changed for the spare "skinny". The AA chap said good job we had the spare wheel or we would have been there to the early hours of the morning.

I admit the dealer did not do a BIG sell on PHV.

[Ten Ninety]

1 hour ago, Chris Dance said:

We wanted a Prius PHV. We even had a charging point put  in our garage at home. When we visited the dealer with intention of trying to do a deal. I found out the Prius PHV did not have a spare wheel.

That is a significant downside of the PHV, and I completely understand why some people won't own a car without a spare. It wasn't a dealbreaker for me, but then I still have a set of 15" wheels in the shed which I bought for my Gen3 and never managed to sell afterwards. Getting recovered home if I have an unrepairable puncture doesn't overly concern me, as I can then just stick an old wheel on until I get the tyre replaced.

I am a pretty unique case, given that I'll probably only be using the car to get to work. If it ever has to take me anywhere actually important (like, say, the airport for holidays) then I'll definitely want to be carrying a spare. Given that the boot is so hilariously shallow that the luggage would have to go in the back seats anyway, it won't be too much of a hardship to strap one of the old wheels in the boot just in case!

[Heidfirst]

6 hours ago, Chris Dance said:

On a previous Prius we owned I hit a "hidden" kerb and got a flat front tyre. It was about midnight. The AA were good and arrived fairly quickly; the wheel was changed for the spare "skinny". The AA chap said good job we had the spare wheel or we would have been there to the early hours of the morning.

iirc the RAC now carry an "universal" spare wheel in their vehicles so I wouldn't be surprised if other recovery services do too these days.

However, as (depending upon where you are & what other calls they have on) you can wait hours for them to arrive I am also 1 of those who much prefers to have my own spare even if it is only a spacesaver.

[PeteB]

10 hours ago, Heidfirst said:

iirc the RAC now carry an "universal" spare wheel in their vehicles so I wouldn't be surprised if other recovery services do too these days.

However, as (depending upon where you are & what other calls they have on) you can wait hours for them to arrive I am also 1 of those who much prefers to have my own spare even if it is only a spacesaver.

Maybe it's changed, but the AA (used by Toyota's recovery service) didn't 2 or 3 years ago.

I heard of a PiP (original model) owner who got a puncture 3 miles from home at 10 or 11 on a wet Friday night.  The gunge didn't work.  He waited for the AA until 2 am, they dumped him at home, flat tyre and all, leaving him to get himself and his wheel to a tyre shop (and back) by some other means the next day!  (At least Jay has his stock of spare wheels at home! [your car does look nice in that colour BTW]).

I was delighted when I ordered my Gen 4 Prius and:

1. got a £400 rebate for choosing 15" wheels
2. had (and took) the no-cost option of a space-saver spare wheel instead of gunge

However, I was rather dismayed when I saw in the manual that in some markets cars with 15" wheels come with a full size spare wheel and under-boot storage to accommodate it.

So why, oh why, couldn't I have specified that on my factory order?  I'd have happily (well, grumpily actually!) foregone the rebate, and maybe even paid a bit extra for that!

[Heidfirst]

6 hours ago, PeteB said:

However, I was rather dismayed when I saw in the manual that in some markets cars with 15" wheels come with a full size spare wheel and under-boot storage to accommodate it.

So why, oh why, couldn't I have specified that on my factory order?  I'd have happily (well, grumpily actually!) foregone the rebate, and maybe even paid a bit extra for that!

probably because it wasn't type approved within the EU & if it had been it may have put the car into another tax class. - it's the extra weight (same as adding the heavier panoramic roof to an Avensis meant the loss of the spacesaver spare to balance).

& actually needing a spare in an emergency these days had become very rare.

[wass]

What a brilliant write up! This is the sort of thing which should be turning up in the motoring press. Sad that most journos are there for the junket and are journos because they got a GCSE in English but don't actually know anything about the motor industry.

 

[PeteB]

1 minute ago, wass said:

...Sad that most journos are there for the junket and are journos because they got a GCSE in English...

Some of them not even sure about that!  🙄

[thecaretaker]

I actually like Dishwasher White 🙂

[wass]

8 hours ago, thecaretaker said:

I actually like Dishwasher White 🙂

 So do I , this is probably why they spray cars in dishwasher  white.

[Harters]

9 hours ago, thecaretaker said:

I actually like Dishwasher White 🙂

Me too, it was the only colour I considered

[Catlover]

Pearlescent white is a colour that I would have chosen, but the Hypersonic Red came on the market at a price I could afford I just went for it and well pleased.  Good choice Jay, pity about the hassle getting a deal. 

[Steve Whits]

Oh the issues with salesmen not least turning up to buy a new car  with my wife (who was a driving instructor) and the number of salesmen that lost a sale due to them insisting on dealing with me!

My current Auris was bought just over 12 months ago when I saw it at a local garage. As it was an Icon I called a garage at Evans Halshaw in Walsall who had an Excel (same age and mileage) so went down to Walsall after confirming it was unmarked on the phone and it was a right bag of s**t.

Supposedly 12,000 miles on the clock with drivers door sill worn down to base coat, tyres replaced with cheap budget ones and general wear and tear on interior indicating it had been used a lot more than it should have been plus all 4 wheels needed a refurb.  Salesman promised he would get everything fixed ha ha so returned and bought my current Icon with no hassle.

Also my wifes current Yaris was a deal done on the phone with Listers Toyota of Boston which was an absolute breeze and was the least stressful part ex I've ever had (and when we got there they actually spoke to her rather than me :))

 

[Ten Ninety]

21 hours ago, thecaretaker said:

I actually like Dishwasher White 🙂

I would have bought one in that colour, if it hadn't been for some of the other issues encountered. It's a really striking colour and sets off the black strakes very well. It's still the same colour as a dishwasher though!

5 hours ago, Steve Whits said:

My current Auris was bought just over 12 months ago when I saw it at a local garage. As it was an Icon I called a garage at Evans Halshaw in Walsall who had an Excel (same age and mileage) so went down to Walsall after confirming it was unmarked on the phone and it was a right bag of s**t.

Yeah, the one I saw with the big dent in it was confirmed as 'unmarked' as well. When we got there, the salesman tried to make out it had just happened the night before...

[Heidfirst]

20 hours ago, Ten Ninety said:

I would have bought one in that colour, if it hadn't been for some of the other issues encountered. It's a really striking colour and sets off the black strakes very well. It's still the same colour as a dishwasher though!

Guess what colour my Avensis is & with black rubbing strips? 😛

I spent the money that I saved on a fancier paint on things like the rubbing strips, tinting rear windows etc.

[Ten Ninety]

On 9/19/2018 at 5:19 PM, Heidfirst said:

Guess what colour my Avensis is & with black rubbing strips? 😛

I spent the money that I saved on a fancier paint on things like the rubbing strips, tinting rear windows etc.

Noooo! Not black rubbing strips! 😄