New 2020 4Runner Purchase

Hey all,

Recent college grad, new to the forum and was looking for some input to determine if I am getting a good deal on the purchase of a 2020 4Runner ORP in Connecticut. This is my first time purchasing a vehicle so I want to make sure all my bases are covered and that I'm not missing anything.

Below is the spec sheet of the vehicle my dealer is receiving in a week or so showing an MSRP of $44,239. I am getting the invoice price for the vehicle at $41,483 minus around $2500 in incentives (current customer cash, recent grad, and loyalty cash for a past lease), should put me around $39,000 pre-tax which includes a lifetime power train warranty.

Does this look like a good deal? Any other tips for things I should be aware of when it comes to buying a new car? Any other fees i should be aware of or expect other than registration, title, taxes?

Thanks for any help!

 

Do you have the $38,983 sales price in writing? If so that is a very good price, IMO. That puts you right under 12% off MSRP.

You can expect a DOC fee. Typically $300-500. Other than that fees vary by region and dealer. Ask them before you sign and they will tell you the other fees.

 

Yes, fortunately the manager I've been working with sent me over a sheet that has the invoice price and various other information about our deal laid out on paper. Wasn't expecting to be purchasing a vehicle this soon, went to the dealer for fun to test drive to get an idea if id even like the 4Runner, had a customer service mishap and through some shrewd negotiation ended up at getting it for invoice price which I feel like I'd be stupid to pass up.

Thank you for the help and insight, much appreciated, good to know I'm getting as good of a deal as I thought!

 

I agree, at that price a very good deal, welcome to the forum.

 

That's a very good price based on what I have seen lately. I bought mine, almost identical to yours, before Covid for 36.8K plus TTL. I say go for it!

 

Agree, good price. Better than typical. Expect several hundred in fees such as "doc" and registration. Presumably that is spelled out on the deal sheet they gave you.

Just remember that sale price and fees aren't the only important aspects of the deal. If you are financing it, the interest rate is key. If they've quoted you a monthly you should multiply it by the number of months, add any cash you are putting down, and compare that total to the asking price of the vehicle and it's MSRP. Understand how much you are paying in interest over the life of the loan.

IMO, a rough but generally good rule of thumb is to get the total you're actually paying (all monthly payments added together, and any cash or trade equity you put down) below MSRP. If you're paying less in total than MSRP, even after including taxes, fees and interest charges, you've gotten a decent deal. In some cases a great deal.

 

A story that illustrates my point above:

I recently helped my kid buy his first new car. The loan and all the payments would be on him, but he'd never negotiated a car purchase so I was there to help with that. We did online research on prices and got a local dealer to agree to a very good discount. But when we were going through the sales process it became clear that the dealer planned all along to take all of that discount back and in effect actually sell the car for more than MSRP through a very high interest rate.

The dealer came down a bit but the rate was still high and the dealer insisted that was the best possible rate for my kid given his credit history.

So I told them they were scumbags and we walked.

Another local dealer sold the exact same car to my kid at 0.9% for 60 months. The discount off MSRP was small, (not surprising given that it was a cheap econo car with little profit margin) but the end result was the total monthly payments over the 5 years, plus the downpayment, being less than MSRP. At the first dealer he would have paid several thousand dollars above MSRP over the life of the loan. And make no mistake, part of that interest rate was going to the dealer. It is common for dealers to get kickbacks on the rate. A portion of your interest payments often go to the dealer. Not all go to the lender.

These jerk offs actually were giving us a really good discount off MSRP. The discounted sale price was real. But the total cost of the deal was hugely inflated. It was no better in reality than walking in there and paying them cash at a price well above MSRP. My kid is no dummy -- well educated etc. -- but he may actually have fallen for it. And obviously, many of this dealer's customers do fall for it. Because they didn't back down even after I called them on their BS.

Moral of the story:

Auto deals contain four main components, and any one of them could result in a rip off. There's the sale price, the fees, the interest rate and the value of your trade if any. You have to look at each of those components and not allow yourself to be wowed at how good just one of them is. Dealers like to "give" with one hand and take with the other.