Hello and welcome to the Car Business blog. I’m Bob Aldons and I’m looking after a customer who’s interested in Buying a New Toyota Landcruiser 200 VX Wagon in Graphite. (The colour will become important later in the story)
Shane called me to discuss how I could assist with the purchase – he wanted to save some money. So off I went and used my contacts to determine how sharp a price I could get.
According to the Toyota website, a buying a new Toyota Landcruiser 200 VX Wagon in Graphite costs at retail $110,025 drive away in Queensland, and there are no specials available, probably due to low stock.
I went out to my regular Toyota dealers and here’s the response
Offer 1 $95,526
Offer 2 $98,187
Offer 3 $96,500
Offer 4 $96,500
Offer 5 Can’t beat $96,500
And for this occasion only, I contacted two of the larger brokers advertising on the internet – Private Fleet and Auto Expert. They claim to be the biggest and best, saving their customers every time on new cars.
So I’m including their offers as well
Private Fleet –
Offer 1 $110,850
Offer 2 $109,000
Offer 3 $107,970
Offer 4 $106,850
So my opinion of Private Fleet hasn’t changed. It’s my understanding that they negotiate harder with the customer than they do with the dealer.
If you use my best price ($95,526) and their best price ($106,850), I Private Fleet is MORE EXPENSIVE by about $11,000. That was my experience with Private Fleet at my former dealership Northstar Jeep.
Where’s the benefit to the customer? Oh, the customer is saving $3175 on the full retail price and there’s a lot WRONG with that in so many ways.
And they charge the customer $187 for a life-time membership fee once the deal has been done. Yea, you get some stuff, but I’d rather buy at $95,526 than $106,850 and forgo the membership. Wouldn’t you?
Auto Expert
It seems that John Cadogan, Auto Expert, uses an independent broker (www.georgia.com.au) to get new car prices for his prospective customers rather than doing it himself as I do.
Offer 1 $105,000
Offer 2 $104,500
Offer 3 $103,890
Alex from Georgia told me that their service was free to their customers and that they invoice the successful dealer for their fee on behalf of Auto Expert at the end of the month. How much? – Alex says “I don’t know. That’s well above my pay grade”.
Alex came back to me a few days later and quoted another round of figures after I told him that I’d been quoted a price well under $100,000.
Offer 4 $96,300
Offer 5 $96,000
Offer 6 $95,800
Sounds a bit suspicious to me, but arguably, his last offer was still more expensive than what I was able to get for this customer.
Now to the matter of Stamp Duty. In the last Queensland State Budget, Treasurer Jacki Trad announced a change to the stamp duty rate for vehicles over $100,000 (new or used)
The Toyota Landcruiser VX just misses out at the RRP price of a white vehicle. The Stamp Duty on a Clear White vehicle is $3924. If you add a metallic paint charge to the vehicle, say Graphite as in this case, the stamp duty jumps to $6018 making the metallic paint option now $2568 MORE than a white car.
Someone should do something about this, shouldn’t they Toyota Motor Corporation? If metallic paint was included as a no-charge option, the Queensland Government would get less $$ into revenue and your Landcruiser VX would be $2,500 cheaper than it is now.
Read the story here – AFR Luxury Car Tax
So the moral of this particular story is to perhaps avoid the ‘Big Two’ and get some pricing from smaller more local brokers. Contact Car Business for the best price on any new car.
Phone: 0418 748 498
Email: bo********@ol*.au
Office: 2/265 Oxley Avenue Margate Q 4019
You should also check out the Google My Business ratings. Car Business currently scores 4.9 Stars on 72 reviews.
Read my Google reviews here: Google
Phone: 0418 748 498
Email: bo********@ol*.au
Office: 2/265 Oxley Avenue (Cnr Duffield Road) Margate Q 4019
You should also check out the Google My Business ratings. Car Business currently scores 4.9 Stars on 72 reviews.
Read my Google reviews here: Google