How much does Toyota and a dealer make per 4Runner?

Say a 4Runner has an MSRP of $45,000. What do you think, how much does Toyota make profit off of that, and how much does the dealer make? I'm really curious about this. You think Toyota makes something like $15,000 per 4Runner, or I am being too much lol?

 

It’s gotta be a pretty big chunk at this point. Surely the research and development costs were long ago paid.

 

I just searched Google and it says that the manufacturer makes like 50% of MSRP in profit. That is a boatload of money per vehicle

 

all vehicles cost alot of money just go shopping you will see.

 

If Toyota makes $15,000 of profit per 4Runner, then it means they made two billion dollars last year on the sale of 4Runners alone

 

https://www.kbb.com/car-news/toyota-becomes-worlds-largest-automaker-again/

 

They deserve it. Quality company. Big fan of this company and big fan of Mr. Toyoda.

 

I think it’s a little misleading to call it “profit”. I certainly don’t think it’s anywhere close to 50% because profit means after all the bills are paid. Everything. I’d be surprised if Toyota was putting 5% in the bank after paying for everything. And “everything” is all-inclusive.

 

Going through all this hell for just 5%? Really? Donut shops make more than 5% per donut lol. Starbucks make more than 5% per latte lol

 

I bet they don’t after paying everything one considers overhead.

 

Even at 5% after all expenses and taxes, that is something like a hundred million dollars of clean banked money every year. And the global behemoth that Toyota is, I'm pretty sure they must be making a whole bunch of money from selling parts and stuff. So money keeps coming from different sources.

 

From what I have read, manufacturers make from 10 to 20% off of a vehicle. The higher the cost of the vehicle the more money they generally make. Dealers make less than 10% but they do get bonuses at the end of the month and year depending on how may they sell. You will generally see bigger discounts at the end of the model year as the manu tries to sell off remaining leftovers.

 

5% of a dollar donut isn’t as lucrative as 5% of $40k. You have to sell a lot of donuts to equal the sale of one 4Runner.

 

True. But you also need to consider how many donuts Dunkin Donuts sells every year compared to 4Runner

 

As much as they can. Dealer greed, may or may not vary.

 

Dunkin Donuts

 

If anything, this year proved once again that dealers are nothing but bloated greedy archaic monsters that have no place in 2021. Just parasites with zero core values. They bring zero value to the company, they ruin the customer experience before and after the sale. The question should be not how much Toyota makes, but how deep do you have to get raped by a dealer to get your hands on a decent car.

 

Never had horrible interactions with dealerships. All my purchases have been decent.

Another consideration is that at present, Toyota has had to significantly reduce manufacturing due to the chip shortage. So it ain’t all roses all the time.

 

I wish one could customize one's car order online on Toyotas website and just go to their site and pick it up, or they just drop it at your house lol. Dealing with dealerships is very stressful, at least for me

 

America runs on Dunkin they claim

 

When I worked for the blue oval company they talked about $10k profit per Super Duty pick-up and that was years ago. This article says GM makes $17k per pick-up. I'm guessing 4Runner profit is $5-10k per vehicle. The tooling was paid for long ago!

https://www.core77.com/posts/82125/...-Market-Competition-Heats-Up-While-Sedans-Die

 

GM also makes more money because three Acadias die per 4Runner lol

 

It’s not knowing how much truth is in each thing they say.

 

I was getting my 4Runner(purchased a month ago) serviced the other day and while I was walking around looking at the cars in the dealership, the same salesman showed up and asked me if I was going to buy another car

 

WARNING - long response ahead

After working in car sales for a very brief time (I'll eat my own leg before I do that again) I learned a few things. Some of which should be considered when answering this question:

For Toyota:

• Now that enough 5th gens are being sold to cover production, transportation, and marketing costs (plus overhead, fringe benefits, etc.) and turn a profit, Toyota will continue to sell them. If you recall, during the great recession, Toyota wasn't selling many 4 Runners (and even fewer FJ Cruisers). FJ's got the axe in North America, and it was rumored the 4Runner was going to stop being produced. Then people started buying them again, then "Overlanding" became an Instagram lifestyle
• Every year the 5th gen is sold, I'm sure the profit margin increases some. As was stated previously, I'm sure cost initial research, development, and tooling costs have been recouped by Toyota (after 12 years of the same generation with minimal annual changes, I'm sure costs have gone down and profits have gone up)
• Toyota only sells new cars to dealers for a set price (invoice). Dealers don't negotiate the invoice price
• Toyota may or may not offer incentives to reduce the sale price of a car (they pay this to dealer)
• The incentives offered by Toyota will change on a monthly basis

For Dealers:

• Dealer pricing is largely based on supply/demand
• Dealers buys new car at invoice price
• Dealer will try to sell new car for as much as they possibly can
• A year ago, a dealer would be more than happy to offer all applicable incentives AND possibly more in order to sell the new car. One could actually purchase a new vehicle for less than invoice because dealers would make up the differences in volume sales bonuses from the manufacturer (dealer sells more cars, Toyota gives them more money)
• Currently, no incentives are offered by manufacturers, so you will pay at least MSRP (unless you have a long standing relationship with the dealer for customer loyalty discounts or are a hell of a negotiator)
• Dealers are less likely to agree to lower purchase pricing because they know they can sell that 4Runner to the next person at higher price
• Dealers may or may not still be receiving unit volume bonuses at present
• Some dealers add amendments or addendums to vehicles in order to increase profit return on small add-ons ($200 for nitrogen fill, $500 for tint, $300 for pinstripes, etc.). These are extremely low cost (to the dealership) items that they upcharge for. Don't ever pay for these. Tell them to take that shit off, and put regular air in the tires (which is about 78% nitrogen anyway)
• Some dealers will add a market adjustment
• Used vehicles are a completely different story - Dealers can negotiate a lower price to buy your car or get them at auction, then sell for as much as possible. Prices are crazy high for trade-ins, auction pricing, and sales right now because demand is so high for slightly used cars, since new cars have a very low supply.
• In my experience, dealers are less inclined to negotiate on used vehicles because the run market comparisons/analysis to price their vehicle competitively to others within a 50 mile radius. You may be able to negotiate a few hundred dollars off, but not thousands.

This was just a long winded way to say - the pure profit gained by the manufacturer or dealer really depends on a number of factors. Unless you are in accounting at either Toyota or a dealer, we may never really know.


I remember getting customers looking for specific used cars. The best I could do was show them what we had as there was no way to know what was coming in next. There is a new car factory. There isn't a used car factory. People always say dealers are unreasonable. Customers can be just as unreasonable in some of their demands (I want a 1 year old car with less than 5K miles in perfect condition for less than $20K, etc.)

But knowing all this, and some other things, allowed me to feel confident enough and armed with enough knowledge to negotiate, what I felt, was a pretty good deal on my new 4Runner last year.

 

There are some on here who seem to be miffed that Toyota (or any manufacturer, for that matter) would try to make as much money as they can on the cars they build. Some people seem to think that Toyota should begin discounting 4Runners because this Gen has been around for so long that ‘the tooling is paid for’, etc. it’s as if profit was a dirty word. But we’re all in it for that, aren’t we? As an individual, I want to profit as much as I can, within certain parameters.

If they overprice their cars, they won’t sell and Toyota loses money on those cars. If they underprice them, the cars will sell out quickly and Toyota will have missed millions of dollars in sales, and may also be unable to meet demand, sending buyers elsewhere. Priced appropriately, the cars will yield the greatest value to Toyota - they end up making the most they can make per car. And some buyers will gripe, but buy, because the demand is strong.

The prime time to expect price cuts is when the cars aren’t moving, or to make room for the next model. You shouldn’t expect ‘nice guy’ price cuts from a manufacturer because they don’t exist, at least not with cars. Look at Jeep - they had to drop the pricing for the Gladiator by somewhere around $15k because they weren’t selling. Now you’ve got buyers who are mad because they paid full price, and you’ve introduced the concept that the Gladiator isn’t worth all that after all. I’m sure every automaker tries like crazy to avoid this scenario.

My two cents.

 

Manufactory net profit is between 11 & 14%.

Dealership net profit around 20%

 

Dealers make less money from new cars than people assume.

New car sales can be a loss leader for a lot of dealers because of all the competition. Many dealers make most of their money from service and used car sales.

As someone said earlier, these are businesses. They deserve to make a profit (if they are fair and reputable). Not all dealers are fair and reputable but not all of them are bad either.

 

I read somewhere that it costs almost $8,000 dollars currently , just to ship 1 vehicle from Japan to a North American port.
That had to eat into their profit margin

 

Similar story here. I went to our dealer to pick up my '19 4Runner after getting maintenance done. Right in the service dept drop off where you had to walk around it to go inside, was a brand new jet black 4Runner TRD PRO, doors open, looking all shiny, along with a blisteringly hot woman and one of the more slimy sales guys the dealership has on payroll. I made the mistake of saying how awesome the vehicle looked... sales-sniper followed me in and was chatting me up even while I was paying the bill.
Only place I've bought vehicles the last 20 years or so is a 'no haggle" dealership about 40 miles away. It's almost fun to buy a car when you're not treated like a sucker.