TLDR: Scummy dealer said mark-up is negotiable. Car arrived and mark up ($6,200) is non-negotiable. Waste of time.
Toyota of Santa Monica, California
Placed a refundable deposit last month for a GR86 Premium MT at this dealership. They said it will have mark-up but is negotiable. They told me it will be around $4-6,000 mark up. MSRP including destination and some accessories is $32,298. In hindsight, we should have asked for something in writing that the mark-up is negotiable but we were in a time crunch as my brother needed a car.
The car arrived 2 weeks ago so my brother and I went. It's for him, so I went with him to make sure he doesn't pay a crazy mark up. We told the salesperson to not drill holes in the front license plate. We get there and it has the front plate. I asked why and they said they did it at the harbor (which I thought was BS but sure).
We test drove the car. It was nice. Went into the salesperson's room and talked numbers. She then says there is a $5,000 mark up which is non-negotiable. Then an additional $1,200 for door edge guards and ceramic coating. A total of $6,200 mark up. Offered MSRP + $1,500 mark up but it would be a $500 markup due to Toyota rebates. They didn't budge at all for this.
We had leverage. We had a printout and even had our salesperson check online for the same exact car but in halo for a $2k markup in San Francisco. They asked why we didn't buy that car and we told them we wanted to buy local. Of course, SoCal dealers we've called all had mark-up (except Longo but long waiting list) and Santa Monica isn't any different. We thought they would at least match that mark-up and then use $1,000 in Toyota rebates making it only a $1,000 mark-up. So we negotiated; they just had impatient people ready to buy with that markup that we weren't willing to pay.
On top of that, I remind her that she said it's negotiable when we put in a deposit. She said the usual 'based on the car market and how a hot car it is, we can't remove mark up.' Ended up talking to the sales manager. He said it was a miscommunication. They both said they had 2 people ready to buy with the mark-up and approved for financials. Great waste of time. Salesperson even says we signed something that we agreed to a mark-up. I told her to show me and she couldn't find it. Take caution of this dealer. Definitely on my blacklist for Toyota dealerships.
Someone bought it since it wasn't on their site the next day.
We ended up finding a 2022 Corolla SE MT sedan in Mission Hills Toyota for MSRP. I told him to practice manual (if we had gotten the GR86, it would be his first manual car) on the Corolla and later in life get the GR86 so the clutch won't take too much of a beating.
