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billroperToday, we will explain why Bill and Gretchen failed in their attempt to buy a new minivan this evening.
The current minivan contenders are the Toyota Sienna and the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid. Both of these are hybrids, but the latter is a plug-in hybrid, which qualifies it for a $7500 Federal tax credit. In what is almost certainly not a coincidence, that is almost exactly the price difference between the hybrid and non-hybrid models.
Aside from the Sienna not qualifying for a tax credit and not being able to soak up electrons from a wall socket, there is also the problem that everything except the base trim line is ordered with a sunroof. There are some options on the mid-line trim that I would be willing to pay for, but since I do not actually fit in a van with a sunroof (all of my height being in my torso), I cannot get them in a minivan that I can drive in any sensible fashion.
This is not totally disqualifying when looking for a Sienna. The fact that none are actually available, however, is more of a problem.
The Pacifica Hybrid's lowest trim line is actually one trim line up from the bottom for the Pacifica line, so it has the features that I generally want and it is possible to find these without a sunroof. Also, dealers have Pacifica Hybrids in stock.
There is a dealer not too far from our home whose name rhymes with "Stapleton" that has, in the past, advertised some decent discounts on minivans. That's where I went for a test drive two years ago, early in pandemic season. Sadly, Gretchen was not ready to buy a new minivan then, so we didn't. But I periodically poke their website to see what's happening there.
When I poked their website a few days ago, they were advertising new Pacifica Hybrid minivans at an "ePrice" that was a bit less than 10% off MSRP. In the current environment, that's a good looking price, as the best I've seen anywhere else is about 5% off MSRP. A lot of the dealers aren't discounting at all or are discounting by the amount of the $750 Chrysler financing rebate.
After discussing this with Gretchen this afternoon and doing some research, we decided to see if it was time to buy a new minivan. TLDR; no, apparently not.
I sent a request for today's price to the dealership and got a call back from a nice young woman who confirmed that the only rebate included in the quoted price was the $750 Chrysler financing rebate. Having determined that, I made an appointment for Gretchen and I to go in for a test drive this evening.
The fellow who was helping us at the dealership was not the person who we'd booked an appointment with, but he was a nice enough guy. It turned out that they had at least one more Pacifica Hybrid that was available in a different color at $300 / $600 more than the gray and black vans on the website. We did a test drive around the lot with the gray van, which handled well. (We could have driven further, but Gretchen did not want to leave the lot in an unfamiliar neighborhood at night, which I sympathize with.)
Back in we went to discuss terms. I explained that if the third minivan cost $300 more than the other, I would be willing to pay that for the color that we liked better, but otherwise, we could just get one of the others. He said that shouldn't be a problem.
And then he came back with paperwork which instead of including a discount -- or even the $750 Chrysler financing rebate -- had a market adjustment upward of $10,000 in price. We were also getting slightly low-balled on the trade-in of the old van, although maybe not by a lot.
I then pulled out the piece of paper from my pocket with the information that I had carefully copied from the website that indicated that they were discounting these vans, not marking them up. Fun and games followed.
I signed a more-or-less offer to buy a minivan for the advertised price. He took it in and the next "manager" came out and started explaining about market scarcity and such.
I asked for my key back and we left to get dinner.
When we got home, there was a message on my answering machine asking me to call back. I got a fellow who explained how we didn't qualify for the ePrice on line, even though the woman that I had spoken to when making the appointment had said that we did. And these vans are in short supply.
I suggested that he should sell the van to someone who needed to buy a van today. I also noted that this made me feel better about not buying the van two years ago for the excellent on-line price, because I apparently wouldn't have gotten it at that price then either.
And that was that.
So Bill and Gretchen have yet to buy a new van.
On the other hand, since we cleaned out the van before going to the dealership, the interior is now in much better shape. :)
The current minivan contenders are the Toyota Sienna and the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid. Both of these are hybrids, but the latter is a plug-in hybrid, which qualifies it for a $7500 Federal tax credit. In what is almost certainly not a coincidence, that is almost exactly the price difference between the hybrid and non-hybrid models.
Aside from the Sienna not qualifying for a tax credit and not being able to soak up electrons from a wall socket, there is also the problem that everything except the base trim line is ordered with a sunroof. There are some options on the mid-line trim that I would be willing to pay for, but since I do not actually fit in a van with a sunroof (all of my height being in my torso), I cannot get them in a minivan that I can drive in any sensible fashion.
This is not totally disqualifying when looking for a Sienna. The fact that none are actually available, however, is more of a problem.
The Pacifica Hybrid's lowest trim line is actually one trim line up from the bottom for the Pacifica line, so it has the features that I generally want and it is possible to find these without a sunroof. Also, dealers have Pacifica Hybrids in stock.
There is a dealer not too far from our home whose name rhymes with "Stapleton" that has, in the past, advertised some decent discounts on minivans. That's where I went for a test drive two years ago, early in pandemic season. Sadly, Gretchen was not ready to buy a new minivan then, so we didn't. But I periodically poke their website to see what's happening there.
When I poked their website a few days ago, they were advertising new Pacifica Hybrid minivans at an "ePrice" that was a bit less than 10% off MSRP. In the current environment, that's a good looking price, as the best I've seen anywhere else is about 5% off MSRP. A lot of the dealers aren't discounting at all or are discounting by the amount of the $750 Chrysler financing rebate.
After discussing this with Gretchen this afternoon and doing some research, we decided to see if it was time to buy a new minivan. TLDR; no, apparently not.
I sent a request for today's price to the dealership and got a call back from a nice young woman who confirmed that the only rebate included in the quoted price was the $750 Chrysler financing rebate. Having determined that, I made an appointment for Gretchen and I to go in for a test drive this evening.
The fellow who was helping us at the dealership was not the person who we'd booked an appointment with, but he was a nice enough guy. It turned out that they had at least one more Pacifica Hybrid that was available in a different color at $300 / $600 more than the gray and black vans on the website. We did a test drive around the lot with the gray van, which handled well. (We could have driven further, but Gretchen did not want to leave the lot in an unfamiliar neighborhood at night, which I sympathize with.)
Back in we went to discuss terms. I explained that if the third minivan cost $300 more than the other, I would be willing to pay that for the color that we liked better, but otherwise, we could just get one of the others. He said that shouldn't be a problem.
And then he came back with paperwork which instead of including a discount -- or even the $750 Chrysler financing rebate -- had a market adjustment upward of $10,000 in price. We were also getting slightly low-balled on the trade-in of the old van, although maybe not by a lot.
I then pulled out the piece of paper from my pocket with the information that I had carefully copied from the website that indicated that they were discounting these vans, not marking them up. Fun and games followed.
I signed a more-or-less offer to buy a minivan for the advertised price. He took it in and the next "manager" came out and started explaining about market scarcity and such.
I asked for my key back and we left to get dinner.
When we got home, there was a message on my answering machine asking me to call back. I got a fellow who explained how we didn't qualify for the ePrice on line, even though the woman that I had spoken to when making the appointment had said that we did. And these vans are in short supply.
I suggested that he should sell the van to someone who needed to buy a van today. I also noted that this made me feel better about not buying the van two years ago for the excellent on-line price, because I apparently wouldn't have gotten it at that price then either.
And that was that.
So Bill and Gretchen have yet to buy a new van.
On the other hand, since we cleaned out the van before going to the dealership, the interior is now in much better shape. :)