I understand that evrybody pays the destination fee.

My problem is the TDA or advertising fee at $481. I'm told thats not negotiable.
I have seen the adv. fee listed on other cars I have bought. My understanding this goes directly to Toyota to pay for there radio and tv advertisments.

One I don't remember seeing is the wholesale financial reserve at $262.

Edmunds says the dealer won't sell the car without collecting these charges. The Toyota sales manager said about the same thing.

I plan on staying with the Toyota brand. It looks like I will have to get used to there pricing methods.

 

Those must be regional add-ons. I paid none of those.

 

The dealers invoice will include all of the following: Dealer Holdbacks which is about 2% of MSRP, wholesale financial reserve which is about 1% of MSRP, destination fee and advertising fee (based on area/region). I can't remember if you actually see all of this broken out on the dealer invoice.

So if you pay dealers invoice price you are not getting the car for what the dealer actually paid for the car.

I bought a TCH will all available options and MSRP was $30929. Dealer invoice was just above $28000 (I saw the invoice). That $28000 included all the fees mentioned above.

I don't really know if the dealer is required to collect the wholesale financial reserve fees or not. If they are then I wonder how that works when someone is getting a car that's a couple of thousand below dealer invoice?

 

The car salesman leads you to believe invoice is true dealer cost. True dealer cost could be a $1000 or more. I learned this when I worked for a GM dealer when I was in my 20's. The salesman gets his commission from selling a vehicle. Any list of accessories he sells he gets a nice percentage of that money. His salaried manager gets about half the commission of each salesman. The dealership also gets money from the manufacture for selling the car. At the end of the year the dealership gets a nice kickback from the manufacture for how many trucks or cars they sold that year. In my day it was the Impala. The dealer also receives, manfacture money for the total amount of vehicles they sold that year.

The GM method may have changed over the years. Toyota may work there sales completely different. I do know that Toyota has the best management of all the vehicle manufactures. There quality of management and ability for good training may be why Toyota has moved to be the top auto company.

I learned a lot with the GM sales job. I was told it would cost 'twice as much' if you assembled a new car from the parts department. There must be a nice profit in car parts, thus the many auto stores around town.

My manager quit working at this GM dealer. He went out in the edge of Dallas and started his own new Motor Home lot. His first year he made over $400,000. I could have worked as a salesman there. I worried about showing the insides of a motor home in the hot July Dallas heat. I was gifted more in electronics.

 

I'm sure you are correct. I wonder why the various regional areas vary like that. I bought a 2003 Corolla and wanted alloy wheels. They were not available in my area at that time. I checked other regional areas and the larger populated states did offer the car with alloys for a extra charge. I tried to buy them from our local dealer parts department. They wanted $1200 for the set. If they were offered during the car sale they would coast about $250 more. I passed up the parts department alloys. I saw anew Corolla SEL at our local dealer with alloys. They may now come as standard equipment.