Blackbelt

Hi. My name is Dave. My wife and i ordered an Onyx Blue Xb on 2/21. Now the wait begins. We have both been fans of the Xb since we first saw it. Love the R 1.0 in Hot Lava. Shame that color isn't avaialable in general.
I have been a car enthusiast pretty much all of my life, and have owned over 80 different vehicles to date(yes i do have a list). My current stable is in my sig. Looking forward to doin g some light mods on the Xb, similer to some things we did when we bouight our PT in 00.
I have to say a few things about my expereience at the dealer. My brother is the service manager at a Chrysler/Jeep dealer, and has been for 15 years. I always bought all my new and used cars there. It was simple, i got the employee price(which can be real sweet on some of the used stuff), no BS. Plus, i didnt have to worry about getting screwed over in the service dept. I always bouht extended warranties on my new cars(and even some of the used ones).
That being the case, i have not had to deal with the usual crap that most have to put up with when buying a car. It has been quite a while.
When we went to buy the Xb, we knew going in that there wasnt going to be a discount off of sticker. I was hoping to get a generous trade in. Well, the appraiasail was total BS. They tried to offer me KBB trade in, rated in "fair" condition. Problem was, my Jeep was between "good" and "excellent" condition. Big difference. I was a little ____ed, but just figured i would sell it myself(which i did, took me 2 days).
So after selling it, we went back to the dealer. We sat down and told the guy we were going to order the car. Told him we also would buy an extended warranty. No trade in. Clean simple deal. The only thing i asked him to do out of the ordinary, was to remove the tires from the rims and to mount and balance them on the new rims i was going to buy. He said.."no way, Scion won't allow that." I was like"WTF are talking about? Scion can't legally tell you that you can't mount some tires for me". He argued for a bit, then agreed to look into it. So we orderd the car. He called me today and told me they would do the tires for $60. What a bunch of crap.

I am really looking forward to getting my Xb, but i sure have an initial bad taste in my mouth for the dealer.

vintage42

How long did they say the wait would be?

That is not a bad price for unmounting, remounting and balancing 4 tires. But you probably wanted it free as part of buying the car?

What will you do with your unused stock rims? I might like to buy extra rims for snow tires, but the shipping probably cost more than the rims.

PatD

My dealer screwed me over very very badly. To the point where they told me I had come to far in the deal to turn back now and I was stuck with the payment that I'm at now. Awful.

Blackbelt

Anywhere from 3-12 weeks...LOL
I was planning on doing the same thing, using the steelies for snow tires.

vintage42

While he preoccupied you with the tire cost, I wonder about the extended warranty and fees. Extended warranties are products with a big markup for the dealer, and can be shopped around. And in my area, one dealer has $900 in fees, another has $500 and another has $400. Those are "pure price", non-negotiable. I went with the dealer that had $500 in fees because they were also so upfront to deal with, and had given me two demo drives last summer. I was disappointed that anyone's fees were not just $100 or so for doing paperwork. Anything over that is just more profit which the market gladly bears for these hot-selling xBs.

ElChupacabra

Hey if you want a BOP xB in auto you can come get it tomorrow. Where are you located in PA? Also, what dealership are you buying from? I know about most of the PA dealerships and what their track records show. In reality they can't do the tire change for free unless its included in the price they posted for the rims you bought. I cant fault them for charging you seperately. Thats Scion policy. Its not Scion policy however to say they couldnt swap them for legal reasons. Let me know if you have any other dealer related questions. I'll do what I can for you because Im all about representing Scion as a company and not simply representing my dealership...

Feel free to call me. My numbers are below in my sig.

ElChupacabra

I took a look where youre located. I cant believe I didnt recognize it sooner. I went to school out there in Indiana, PA. Hey you can have your car with a simple 4 hour ride...

dugzilla

Go get if from Joe, every thing I've seen from him on here yocan't go wrong!!

ElChupacabra

Yay! Im popular. Im bringing a printout of these posts to my next reunion to show all the jocks I've changed since being a small loser who they used to shove in lockers...

...Yeah that isnt the truth. I was never small.

I actually just checked and we have not one, but two BOP autos.

Blackbelt

Mines a 5 speed, not sn automatic. The thing is, how can scion legally tell any dealer what they can or cannot charge in their shop. On the reverse side, i have seen a lot of dealers add markup to hot selling cars, and the manufacturer alays says the same thing.
"we cannot legally dictate pricing to the dealers, the MSRP is just that, a SUGGESTED price."
I guess having family in the biz has spoiled me.
What i dont understand is why they just cant have service charge that off to new cars. It really isnt any of Scions business anyway. The delaer did not sell me the wheels, i am supplying my own. If push comes to shove, i will pay the damn 60 bucks, i just figured that since i was paying their sticker price, buying a warranty, and making a clean no trade deal, they could at least have a $15 an hour apprentice spend 30 minutes to mount some tires for me.

hotbox05

apprentices don't get 15 an hour. those poor guys.

dugzilla

the reason the price on the Scion is so reasonable is because you get no frills. Dealerships are not making money on a stock xB, once you start adding anything then they can charge whatever they want. Sooooo.... I don't think it's unreasonable to charge $60 to mount your stock tires on your aftermarket wheels. When I had my 15's I had the same thing done and it cost almost $90.

ElChupacabra

As a dealer we are free to charge whatever we want for the vehicle, service, parts, and accessories. The rule is we have to post all of those prices and cannot under any circumstances deviate from the set posted price. So if you brought them your own wheels and you wanted them balanced they are not allowed to put that service into your new car deal. I gaurantee they wrote that up seperately and billed it to you as if you had just walked in the door and wanted tires changed on rims. Scion gives us a lot of freedom and at the same time keeps us on a tight leash. Learning what you can and cant do as a dealer can be tricky...

...I dont know why they are telling you 3-12 weeks. the last 4 Scion locates I did this month I had the car on my lot in more like 3-12 days. I can find you a stick BOP if want. Otherwise enjoy it when you get it and stay in touch.

Blackbelt

Interesting. I would never have thought that a manufacturer could command a dealer to not give a few 'perks' to anew car buyer.
The dealer told me that they "post an allocation" twice a month. he said if "they pick it up on the next allocation", then it shoud be there within 4-6 weeks. he said he might have possibly located one in Erie if i wanted one sooner. I prefer to wait rather than have someone, possibly some part time employee, driving (and beating the hell out of) my brand new unbroken in car. I actually would rather not get the car until the weather improves anyway. Thanks for the offer, and any other insight you can provide me is appreciated.

The salesman is supposed to be calling me tomorrow with an update on the cost of doing the tires swap. I feel a little bad now as i was pretty tough on the guy today about them wanting to charge to do it. I guess i am a little spoiled by having my brother work at a dealer. I havent had to pay full price for crap like that for a long time.

hotbox05

these cars come pretty damned close to broken in. and just about anyone who works in the autoindustry knows not to mess with a car that is sold. the more and or harder miles are on it the less it's worth and could cost them a sale. besides most if farther than 20 miles get towed. hell most that close get transported as well.

Blackbelt

I didn't realize that. I just assumed that they sent a lot attendent out to deliver the car. I didnt even think to ask the question. The salesman is supposed to call me today. I will ask him how they transport it. Thanks for the info.
Joe, could you explain a bit how the allocation process and delivery process works. Or if has been discussed elsewhere, pon me n that direction please. I couldn't find much info in a search.
Thanks.

vintage42

See:
https://www.scionlife.com/forums/vie...cation+process

vintage42

They are making a regular, set profit on the MSRP of a stock xB. Then they can make some more profit selling and installing accessories. But I think the easiest source of profit is any fees they want to charge. One dealer here has $900 in fees, of which $800 surely must be pure profit. He sells all the xBs they can get within a week.

dugzilla

Exactaly, but a dealership can mark up a used xB where a new one has a set price.

vintage42

Yeah. I saw a TCM xB like I wanted on a dealers used car lot, and asked how much. They said $21,000 but would maybe knock off a couple thou. This is the same dealer that wanted $900 in fees for a new one, so I drove 20 miles and ordered from another dealer.