A man went to a dealer and persuaded him to cut almost 10 percent off the retail price of a Corolla Hybrid
- A car buyer 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 at a price higher than the MSRP, but the buyer isn’t having it.
- Instead, it demonstrates all the skills necessary to get exactly the business you want under the right circumstances.
Virginia is a one-party consent state, meaning a person can legally record their conversation with any other person, even if they are unaware of the recording. A smart car customer went to his local Toyota dealer with every intention of purchasing a Corolla Hybrid. He happened to record the interaction for everyone 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 time of publication) showing the negotiations between the two parties, the buyer in this case is specifically looking at a 2024 Toyota Corolla Hybrid LE with an MSRP of $25,189 US dollars interested. A cached version of the original online sales page also confirms this price. Using Toyota’s online configurator for the LE, it’s impossible to achieve this exact value, as the base MSRP is actually just $24,695.
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This includes delivery, handling and handling of $1,195. To what extent it appears that this particular car has one or two options that are not disclosed in the video or documentation we see here. The shopper enters the store with the goal of leaving the store without paying a dime over $26,000. However, when he arrives, the car suddenly costs $29,379. These include a $1,995.00 surcharge that is not mentioned online, an $899 processing fee, and a $76.75 tax-free fee.
When the seller asks how the buyer wants to pay, he simply replies that the price is too high and he has to wait until he can afford it. Almost immediately, the seller offers to take $500 off. Within 17 seconds, they drop the price by $1,000, and less than two minutes after the initial $500 discount, they’re ready to discount the car by $1,500.
Keep in mind that this number doesn’t even cover market adjustment. The salesman and then a sales manager explain this by saying they rarely see these hybrid Corollas. This 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 they “maybe” could do $28,800. The buyer stands firm and says things like, “I need to save up and come back next year.” The trader asks, “What if I removed the market adjustment?” Even then, the buyer only moves at $26,500.
The dealer responds that this value is “below MSRP,” which, as we made clear above, is objectively false according to the dealer’s own website. The manager then drops the price to $27,184. Again, they say it’s “below MSRP” and state that it’s “about 200 below MSRP.”
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The buyer is left at $26,500 and the dealer says, “Well, you have three weeks to get to $684.” He even says they can’t find a Corolla Hybrid for less than $5,000 at another Toyota store would have sold above the RRP.
In the end, our intrepid hero gets the Corolla Hybrid for a cool $26,800.00. That’s a lot when you consider that it also includes the taxes paid on the car in question.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbAKMD8o3iA
This is a prime example of how to handle haggling over a car. This person comes in with everything they need. As for the physical items, he has a pre-approved check from his bank for $18,000. He has a cashier’s check for $4,000 made to the dealer in question. And he is ready to transfer the remaining balance to a credit card. That shows sincerity.
In addition, he has the right determined attitude. He is calm, determined, relaxed and straightforward when it comes to sticking to his original amount of $26,000. He acknowledges the dealer staff’s concessions and remains focused on either getting the price he wants or walking away from the deal. In the end, he gets almost exactly what he asks for: $26,800.
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That’s $2,579.56 less than the dealer’s original price. In this case that is 9.6 percent of the total price, a considerable saving in percentage terms.
Finally, it’s worth noting that this is all well and good, but it doesn’t work in every situation. Some dealers simply won’t close such a deal out of stubbornness or greed. In other cases, the car in question is actually quite rare and hard to come by, and the dealer won’t do anything about it to make every penny of profit they can. In any case, we say: be like this guy, never agree to a markup, and be prepared to walk away if the price isn’t right.
