- A car shopper strolled into a Toyota dealership ready to haggle and recorded the interaction.
- The dealer tries all sorts of tactics to sell the car in question for over MSRP but the buyer doesn’t bite.
- Instead, he demonstrates all of the requisite skills needed to get exactly the deal you’re hoping for in the right circumstances.
Virginia is a single-party consent state, which means that one person can legally record their conversation with anyone else even if they don’t know about the recording. One shrewd car customer walked into his local Toyota dealer with every intent on buying a Corolla Hybrid. He just so happened to record the interaction for all to hear and it turned out to be a lesson in car buying.
According to a Reddit post that shared the YouTube video (removed at the time of publishing) depicting the negotiation between the two parties, the buyer in this case is specifically interested in a 2024 Toyota Corolla Hybrid LE with an MSRP of $25,189. A cached version of the original sales page online also confirms that price. It’s impossible to reach that exact figure using Toyota’s online configurator for the LE, as it actually has a base MSRP of just $24,695.
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That includes delivery, processing, and handling of $1,195. To whatever degree it appears as though this particular car has an option or two not disclosed in the video or on the paperwork we see here. The buyer arrives at the store with a goal of walking out without paying a cent over $26,000. When he arrives though, the car is suddenly $29,379 out the door. That includes a $1,995.00 markup not mentioned online, a $899 processing fee, and a $76.75 non-tax fee.
When the salesperson asks how the buyer how he wants to pay he simply says that the price is too high and that he’ll have to wait til he can afford it. Almost immediately, the salesperson offers to take $500 off. Within 17 seconds they’re axing $1,000 off of the price and less than two minutes after initially offering $500 off they’re willing to discount the car $1,500.
Keep in mind that figure doesn’t even cover the market adjustment. The salesperson and then a sales manager both explain this by talking about how rarely they see these hybrid Corollas. That seems funny since the Corolla Hybrid had its best sales year ever in 2023 with more than 47,000 units sold. The sales manager initially says that they “might” be able to do $28,800. The buyer continues to remain steadfast saying things like “I’ll have to save up and come back next year.” The dealer asks “what if I took off the market adjustment?” Even then, the buyer only budges to $26,500.
The dealer replies that he’s “below MSRP” at that figure which, as we’ve clarified above, is objectively wrong according to the dealer’s own website. The manager then drops the price to $27,184. Again, they say that it’s “below MSRP” and specify that it’s “about 200 below MSRP.”
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The buyer sticks to $26,500 and the dealer says “well you have three weeks to come up with $684”. He even says that at another Toyota store, they didn’t sell a Corolla Hybrid for anything less than $5,000 over MSRP.
In the end, our intrepid hero gets the Corolla Hybrid for a cool $26,800.00 out the door. That’s a great deal considering that it also includes the taxes paid for the car in question.
This is an outstanding example of just how to handle haggling for a car. This individual walks in with everything he needs. In terms of physical items, he has a pre-approval check from his bank for $18,000. He has a cashier’s check to the specific dealer in question for $4,000. And he’s prepared to swipe the rest of the amount onto a credit card. That shows sincerity.
In addition, he brings the right resolute attitude to the mix. He’s calm, determined, relaxed, and straightforward about sticking to his original figure of $26,000 out the door. He recognizes the concessions made by the dealership employees and remains focused on either getting the price he wants or calling off the deal. In the end, he gets almost exactly what he asks for: $26,800 out the door.
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That’s $2,579.56 off of the dealer’s original price. In this case, that represents 9.6 percent of the total price, a quite substantial savings in terms of percentage.
Finally, it’s worth noting that this is all well and good but it won’t work in every situation. Some dealers won’t make a deal like this simply out of stubbornness or greed. In other cases, the car in question is actually somewhat rare and hard to come by and the dealer will stick to their guns to get every penny of markup profit they can. In either case, we say be like this guy, don’t agree to a markup ever, and be willing to walk away when the price isn’t right.
