Toyota Deals So Far
Given Toyota’s highly publicized problems with some of its models, we expected to see some of the best incentive offers in the company’s history. Those offers are now becoming available, although a little slowly and not yet quite as aggressively as we expected.
The new Toyota deals, which end on March 31, 2010, although attractive, are probably not as aggressive as the incentives that the company is likely to offer as soon as they get past their current problems.
It could be that they will modify the current incentives, or simply wait until next month to announce new and better deals. We expect Toyota to maintain these incentives throughout 2010, with adjustments from month to month.
It’s certain that Toyota must create incentives to get customers to come back and buy again. Full-page ads in local and national newspapers, and feel-good TV commercials simply aren’t going to do it. For sure, Toyota will come back with better safety, better reliability, and better quality control than ever before, but it will require a herculean effort and big monetary incentives to get most customers’ to start buying again.
Most of the current (until March 31) incentives are in the form of 0% APR and low-interest loans, and factory-to-dealer cash that dealers can use to offer price discounts. However, customers can’t take both. It’s the price discounts or low-interest loans, but not both. Obviously missing from the current incentive program mix are direct factory-to-customer rebates.
[ UPDATE: Toyota has now added some very attractive leases for March. In fact, these are some of the best car leases available for any automobile make or model right now. We discuss them in a separate article here.]
[ UPDATE 4/7/2010: Toyota announced today that the March lease deals, including 2 years free maintenance, will be continued through April 2010.]
For example, on the much maligned 2010 Toyota Camry, there is $2000 factory-to-dealer cash, or a 0% APR loan rate for 36/48/60 months.
The 2010 Toyota Highlander SUV gets the same loan deal but only $1500 factory-to-dealer cash.
The 2010 Toyota Tundra gets 0% APR only for 36 months (1.9% for 48/60 months) or $3000 factory-to-dealer cash.
The 2010 Toyota Yaris gets the same loan, but instead of factory-to-dealer cash, customers get a $1000 rebate, which of course can’t be combined with the low-interest rate deal.
The 2010 Toyota Camry Hybrid, FJ Cruiser, 4Runner, Land Cruiser, Prius, and Sequoia get nothing.
The possible Toyota incentive program “improvements” that could come at a later date are to 1) add customer rebates to most models/styles, including a “customer loyalty bonus”; 2) extend 0% APR loans to more models/styles; and 3) extend special lease deals to more models/styles. It is also possible we’ll see some kind of free extended warranty or maintenance to help alleviate customers’ concerns about reliability.
You can get free price quotes on any of the above Toyota vehicles from Edmunds.com.
The quotes will automatically include any cash-back rebates or discounts that are currently available.
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