New car dealing?
 

It's new car time for Mrs. Moonie. After a painfully drawn out search process she has decided on the Toyota Camry Hybrid.

My problem is that these things are selling like crazy. The dealer cannot keep them in stock. Is there anyway to haggle for a deal in that situation?

About the only opportunity I can see is the "I'll go elsewhere" but of course I'd have the same problem at any dealer and I'm sure they know that.

Any ideas?

No, you're not likely to get a deal. You'll be lucky to get sticker and not something over it.

Maybe, but not the kind of deal that's good for you. Back in '04, we were on a wait list for a Prius. We had to put down a $500 deposit and agree to pay MSRP. Okeydokey. We were told the waiting list was six months, but six months passed, and no car. We looked at Edmund's, and it said that the cars were selling for above MSRP, so we began to get the feeling that we were expected to offer more money, which we did not want to do. We then went to a Honda dealer to look at the Civic Hybrid, which we liked well enough. The salesman said he had to bump up the price because these things were really moving. I had my Edmund's printout and said, "No, they aren't." He caved immediately, and we were out of there in half an hour with a proper 300 to 400 above dealer invoice car that we've been quite happy with.

If you are an AAA member, I suggest you check into AAA Fleet Pricing. We've used it to buy our last three cars and it works very well. AAA negotiates with dealers for volume pricing and there's no individual haggling necessary; you deal with the fleet manager instead of regular salespeople. You may not get the absolute best price you could have gotten by hardcore haggling, but you'll get a price that's more than fair. With the popularity of hybrids, I suspect AAA Fleet Pricing will get you the best price available.

If you're not a member of AAA, Costco also has fleet pricing as do many credit unions.

Good point. You'll likely get the same price from any volume-pricing organization.

In our research (which, granted, was limited - since we had to replace my car which was declared a total loss thanks to the jerk who hit me) we found that even year-old used hybrids are going for more than new MSRP. The demand is simply too great. Great haggling can be done for SUVs, though - nobody wants them. Wonder why?

Sam's does the same.

If you know anyone at a large corporation, you might ask who they buy their company cars from. When my dad was with Monsanto many years ago, we could get Fords at dealer cost.