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Part I of this entry is here.

Perhaps it was all of the preemptive research that we did, or the fact that we spread the car-buying process out over a month-long period, but test-driving and buying the car was by far the easiest and briefest part of the process.

The Test-Drive

One thing that every car-buying book will tell you is to never, ever test drive a car on the same day that you buy it. Salesmen know that you'll be basking in the test-drive afterglow, and that puts you in a weaker bargaining position. So, we took the advice of ... For Dummies (I think?) and scheduled test drives with the Internet Fleet Managers of our local Toyota and Honda dealerships, stressing -- emphatically -- that we were shopping around, and would not be buying that same day.

Something about this approach must have worked, because we experienced very little pressure when we stepped inside the Toyota dealership on a snowy Saturday morning to try out a Prius. We were in the process of receiving some of the two feet of snow that we got that month, which actually turned out to be perfect. The salesman let us maneuver the car around the ice-covered back lot, and take it up an unplowed hill. It wasn't until we fishtailed our way back out of the dealership in the Town Car that we realized just how well it handled. Although Pete and I retained pretty imposing unimpressed stonefaces throughout the course of the test drive, I was sold on the Prius, and we talked about it as we ran errands on the way home -- for some reason, the hatchback and fold-down back seats activated some paternally-installed dictum in my brain that demands that any decent automobile ought to be able to transport large quantities of lumber and concrete home from the home-improvement store. Regardless, the test drive confirmed our preference, and we decided to buy.

Buying

This might be where it gets a little unconventional. The end of December, as it turned out, was not the haven of rest and relaxation that we'd anticipated -- Pete was spending all day, every day in the lab to help get his experiment running, and had some out-of-town job interviews scheduled at the beginning of January. We could do the fax attack, but after (you guessed it) some more research, decided go to with Car Bargains.

Basically, you pay Car Bargains $190 to solicit committed quotes from local dealerships. This might seem like a lot, but here's the thing -- the Prius is an in-demand car, particularly in Madison. Not only are there not very many of them available, but the average buyer in our zip code pays $23,233 for the $23,759 model that we were interested in. That doesn't indicate a whole lot of leveraging power on the part of the buyer, and Toyota's incentives and rebates are few and far between. Because we were buying a car that was new (hardly any used were available locally), popular, and had a few weeks to wait, Car Bargains seemed like the way to go. It's worth noting, however, that it's best-suited for the patient. Our report was estimated as taking 12 business days to receive, and took a bit longer than that; over Christmas and the New Year, too, bureaucratic gears seem to grind particularly slowly.

The report, however, was revealing. The bids that we received from seven local dealers varied by $1900 -- we were quoted a low price of $300 below invoice, and a high price of $1500 over invoice. Was it worth the $190? Oh, hells yes. The lowest quote was from a dealership about 40 miles away in a small town, which we certainly wouldn't have thought of visiting otherwise. Pete called them up at lunch on Friday, and they had one model available with the package that we wanted in a fairly unobjectionable color. Our contact was there until 7 pm, so we bussed home from campus, hopped in the car, and drove 50 minutes down the highway to the dealership.

After all of the reading, and mental steeling against the money-grabbing ways of the car dealership, the actual process was... really easy. Because they'd basically already made an offer with us, we looked at the car, and said "yup, that looks good." We filled out some forms, gave them some ID -- one of which, we were told, could be "any form of picture ID -- gun license..." -- and the sales rep extolled the virtues of the Prius to us before the sales manager came over to say hi. "I didn't know what to think when I got the call from [the employee at Car Bargains who'd contacted the dealerships], but I figured that it was a volume deal, so I might as well make a good offer," he explained. And he got a customer that he wouldn't have otherwise received, so it worked out well for all of us. Financing didn't put any pressure on us, and the longest part of the process was our sales rep walking through all of the bells and whistles on the interior of the car. After about an hour lolling about the dealership, we headed back to Madison. (Sage advice: decide on some equitable method of figuring out who gets to drive the new car home before you get to the dealership, lest you get into an embarrassing spat on the sales floor.) It was, quite honestly, one of the easiest and least intense things that we've ever done, though much of that was probably not due to preparation as much as it was the dealership that we visited.

The Bottom Line

With Package 2 (vehicle stability control, backup camera, and none of that unnecessary Bluetooth / GPS stuff), the MSRP of the vehicle was quoted to us as $23,759 (all figures minus tax, title, license, and other fees). Others in the area paid an average of $23,233. We paid $21,970, approximately $100 over invoice. I'm happy with that, even though we probably should've looked at the sticker more closely before we bought the car and realized that the price included the dreaded overpriced floor mats! Here's the thing: people either hate everything remotely associated with buying a car, or are convinced that their own personal method is the most super-awesome way to get the bestest deal ever. I am completely happy with the deal that we received, and found the entire experience non-traumatic, and I think that's what matters.

I should probably take the car out for a drive sometime, huh?

Hey, congrats on the new car! They're fun, and they smell good, even if the smell is technically toxic. My current car had 9 miles on it when I bought it. Its now 8 years old and has 85K-ish miles on it, but I still love that it's MY CAR.

That is a very, very, very good price for the Prius. I've been shopping for a used one, and even 2005 models around 50,000 miles are still in the $20,000 range. I'm wondering if it's even worth buying used when for a few extra loan payments I could buy new.

I also am impressed that you two have such a good savings habit. I've never been able to have the option to pay cash for a car, even a used one.

Mollysusie, you've actually reminded me of one thing I don't think I mentioned -- another reason that we decided to buy new was because used models were hardly even discounted. Used Priuses are even *more* in demand, whereas nearly all of the local dealerships had 1-2 new package 2 Priuses in stock. I figured that we'd have more bargaining leverage with a new vehicle, and that'd reduce the already narrow price difference between new and used.

Sounds like you did it the smart way. When I bought my last car, I had narrowed down what I wanted to three different cars. I was living in a town that had one of each type of dealership, I wouldn't have thought of going further out as I've always been told you don't get good service at a dealer where the car wasn't bought. I ended up paying sticker because it was the last year for that car and it was the last car of that type they had in a color I could live with. I'll have to look into carbargains next time I buy.

Ooh, I'm jealous. The prius is such an awesome vehicle.