I see a lot of LCs on smart path with msrp. Have you had any success purchasing a LC with Smart Path? I had a dealer refusing to honor the smart path price. I think it is complete false advertising. Any lawyer here to advise what to do with it?
Purchase via Smartpath
- Thread starter socallc
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Not a lawyer. But I would go in and meet face to face with the dealer. You know how many people are calling about these things right now. I got mine at msrp. But I went in last December and put my name on a list. Good luck.
Oh. And good luck with the false advertising. Hope you got a lot of money to pay an attorney.
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What is the point of smartpath? I see cars advertised at msrp, then I contacted the dealers (once I even went through the purchase process in smartpath), the dealers got back to me, none honoring the advertised price, but offering the sale with added thousands of markups. Really? Some dealers are even advertising the same msrp price on their website, but not honoring the price when I contacted them.
I understand it’s frustrating. However, in my opinion, you should actually, physically go to the dealership. The demand right now for these things is through the roof. Why would they sit and discuss these over the phone when they’ve got people on waiting lists and like me who go in and deal with them face-to-face. I’m old school I guess. But, our Land Cruiser at sticker is en route as we speak.
I got my FE via TrueCar but had some trouble along the way. The first dealer wanted 10K over the advertised price on TrueCar and I had a competing offer for 5K over asking. The salesman agreed to match 5K over MSRP but by the next morning said the owner wanted 15K over MSRP! I saluted and "wished him well" and moved on. This experience generated a negative review and formal complaint to TrueCar.
I then saw another TrueCar offer for 5K over asking but when I arrived at the dealer they offered me one with a lot of add-ons with a different VIN. I showed him the TrueCar printout and it was the same car for less without the add-ons. He agreed this was not fair and gave me another Heritage Blue FE for the advertised 5K over MSRP, but I got to choose 5K worth of product (KO3's, tint, etc). Toyota of Redlands.
I then saw another TrueCar offer for 5K over asking but when I arrived at the dealer they offered me one with a lot of add-ons with a different VIN. I showed him the TrueCar printout and it was the same car for less without the add-ons. He agreed this was not fair and gave me another Heritage Blue FE for the advertised 5K over MSRP, but I got to choose 5K worth of product (KO3's, tint, etc). Toyota of Redlands.
It is nice to see that Toyota is finally supplying dealerships with something they can sell. It must be frustrating for sales people not to be able to obtain a new product to sell, especially in the first year of product rollout.
The dealers all have the option to participate in SmartPath or not. If they are displaying MSRP there and then won’t honor it, they are playing a little bait/switch game and a complaint to Toyota is warranted - but don’t waste any time with a lawyer. My .02
- Jan 29, 2024
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- 2024 Landcruiser FE (waiting on delivery), 2007 FJ Cruiser, 1992 MR2
Downtown Toyota in Oakland played that game. Had in stock and MSRP went to how much over will you pay now and we will get you the LC when we get it. Don't even think we are selling at MSRP.
I would like to have a Land Cruiser level with the premium package. I don't need one at the moment. I would like to have one! My feeling is Toyota is going to get this problem fixed and get the units in dealer hands very soon. They don't want want to be holding on to 2024's when manufacturers are bringing out 2025's. I've been following the Forum for a while and it seems many of the members are on multiple wait lists, (I'm on three.) I only plan to buy one Land Cruiser and are pretty sure that's all the rest are planning to buy! Waiting lists are going to disappear along with ADMs.
That's one route I took and got a back up contract yesterday with the VIN in case original purchaser walks away. I have another VIN on a loaded FE with my local dealer. Smart Path keeps dealers from losing business in my view. I cannot get too excited about paying $7K extra for stuff I don't want.
And you should not get excited about that. We all understand.
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I haven’t been to a dealership physically in the past 20 years to negotiate buying a car. Every new vehicle I purchased in the past was ironed out with emails. I do not have time to waste in dealerships and get screwed over.
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I won’t get a lawyer on my own of course. If there are enough complaints or screw over, perhaps a class action lawsuit is warranted. I will start with a complaint to Toyota upper management and BBB. Stay away from DCH Toyota of Torrance, and Keys Toyota Van Nuys,
There is a good thread on tacomaworld about getting a lawyer to go after a dealership for a lemon law issue. It is based on a lemon law vs false advertising so maybe not apples to apples but essentially you will spend more time and money trying to win than you will reasonable expect to receive as damages. The best way to go after them is to have multiple people contacting a regulatory body (not exactly sure which - maybe FTC) and trying to get them interested...which they won't be. At least, they never did anything about Ford dealers when the same shit was happening with the Bronco.
I'm also baffled you can advertise a price and then add on a bunch of crap / fees and get away with it.
BTW- You probably don't need a lawyer or the BBB you could probably just file a complaint with the FTC for free.
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- #17
Not a fan of the add-ons/additional dealer markup......... however I don't have to purchase the vehicle.
Kind of like, I advertise my vehicle on Market place and a bidding war escalates the asking price, why would the person who receives the vehicle have a legitimate complaint? They didn't have to bid so high and could have stopped bidding at any point.
Now if I have already paid and the price goes up, or if I had a contract......game on!
Kind of like, I advertise my vehicle on Market place and a bidding war escalates the asking price, why would the person who receives the vehicle have a legitimate complaint? They didn't have to bid so high and could have stopped bidding at any point.
Now if I have already paid and the price goes up, or if I had a contract......game on!
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- #18
They should be on eBay or Bring a Trailer if they want to start a bid. Retailers shouldn’t get away for raising their advertised price at the store because there are more people interested to buy their products. That’s bait and switch, pure unethical and greed. I think Toyota Motors is partly at fault for allowing this to happen.
In Canada, there are laws protecting most new car buyers for this. In most provinces, the advertised price of the vehicle has to be the all-in price of the vehicle aside from taxes only (freight, dealer fees, etc. must be included unless specified). Dealers are not allowed to increase the price beyond the publicly advertised price. We also have very few dealer markups above MSRP here, although I have seen it.
