C
Cricket
Guest
It is used, with extremely low mileage. Hubby and I decided to get rid of 1 of our cars and our conversion van is getting old, even though it only has 50,000 miles on it, so we decided to replace both with a minivan. We started shopping and were shocked at the prices for a Toyota Sienna LE!! Apparently this van holds it's value because it is rated so high, and the resale price stays high for a used vehicle. Boy, we learned a lot during our shopping for a car/van! The van we wanted had a blue book value of $23,500 used, as a new one would have been over $31,000. Uggg, big bucks now days for vehicles! Well, I went into a sales mode and kept hunting for a good deal, but these darn minivans just are rated high and so the price stayed high and the dealers just wouldn't lower their price much. I used to wheel and deal myself into a wonderful outcome but not now! Well, I kept hunting and found an absolutely wonderful deal! I called up the dealer and asked if the van that was in the ad on the internet was still on sale and he said yes, it was just put in. The price was unbelievable compared to ALL the other ads I had been checking. It just stood out with the price difference! We immediately went to check it out and the situation became very weird! The ad stated $17,995 by the dealer. This was about $4,000 less than what I had found to be the cheapest price out there for where we live. We got there and the first thing I noticed was on the front window of this van was written in big numbers $19,995 and the words "Just reduced"!! I was concerned seeing that price. We walked into the dealership and started talking after being shown the van and a test drive. Remind you we hadn't said a word about the difference in the price. Ok, so now we both loved the van, excellent, brand new condition and we were very excited but worried.The salesman starts in at having to say that we were very lucky to have come this quick, because it had been on there lot for sale at a higher price and they decided since it wasn't being sold within their time period they put it on the internet at their reduced price of $19,995. We realized there had to have been a mistake right then and there about it being $17,995 instead of $19,995! Luckily I had made a copy of the ad and brought it with me. The salesman was ready to charge us the $19,995 and I said wait a minute there is a discrepancy in the price and showed him the ad. He was literally flabbergasted. He said there were several different ads put in the internet and this was the first time he saw the ad for this. He went to his manager and came back quit a bit later with the news that the ad was put in wrong and the price was $19,995 , not $17,995 and we would have to pay what they wanted, not what the ad said. I got upset, and said they should honor the ad since it was stated that price and so he went back again, we could see he was shaken from the mistake. I am sure he didn't care but his boss was probably fuming at the ad's mistake. Well, we got the van for the listed price of $17,995 and it actually is worth $23,500! After he agreed to the ad's price, our salesman showed us a statement of sale they the dealership had with the original owner and they paid the owner $17,350 ! The dealership only made a profit of $645! I could then see why they were upset, but what the heck..it was in the ad, and we did go far to check it out and they can eat this up , just didn't really make profit much on it!!
