Toyota Dealer soliciting my S2000?
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From: Sellersburg
Toyota Dealer soliciting my S2000?
I'm trying to figure out if this is just a standard sales form letter, or if they have a particular interest in S2000's. A local dealership where I bought a 4Runner sent me a letter notifying me of a 'special' pricing event and said "Your status as a Honda customer qualified you for this private sale".
They went on to say they are in desperate need of pre-owned 2000 Honda S2000s in order to fulfill special used vehicle requests. And they'd like to exchange my S2000 for any new 2004 or 2005 car, truck, van, or suv with little or no out of pocket expenses. It goes on to say that I receive a $1000 online shopping spree just for attending.
Given the format of the letter, I'm thinking this is just a technique they use to get you back in their store, and that they've somehow acquired records that I own a S2000 and put it on file. (how, I don't know, unless they just saw me drive it there when I took another car for service) And that it may not be particular to the S2000, but that they just use some pricing data to pick out certain vehicle owners to solicit, knowing that they can do a tradein and make money on both sides of the deal.
Has anyone heard of anything similar occurring before? I'm not about to exchange my S2000 for any Toyota they are selling right now. But they're dangling the carrot of a $1000 online shopping spree to come to it. They must be convinced that they can sell me a car.
If this is just a form letter and standard sales gimmick, I'd not be surprised. But there is enough truth potential in someone wanting used s2000's that I'm not certain. I doubt Toyota would be doing an even trade of a 2000 S2000 with one of their cars from the lot priced at more than $18K.
If anyone has seen similar tactics used simply to try to sell people new cars, please post your experiences. I've purchased 3 cars from this particular dealer and I can say that every time it was a difficult deal to close and that I felt they were attempting to confuse and cheat me.
Byron
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From: Central USA
Byron, It's just what it sounds like, a tactic to get you through the door. You know from prior experience what happens then. It sounds like they found a way to obtain the information about your vehicles and they're using it to their advantage.
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From: Near Motown
Originally Posted by bguernsey,Mar 9 2005, 06:28 PM
Given the format of the letter, I'm thinking this is just a technique they use to get you back in their store, and that they've somehow acquired records that I own a S2000 and put it on file. (how, I don't know, unless they just saw me drive it there when I took another car for service) And that it may not be particular to the S2000, but that they just use some pricing data to pick out certain vehicle owners to solicit, knowing that they can do a tradein and make money on both sides of the deal.
Go to the "Confessions of a Car Salesman" article at Edmunds.com and there's a discussion of this specific tactic. It's all about getting you in to the dealership.
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That's actually how I ended up with an S2000. Honda dealership sent out a letter saying that they wanted my '01 prelude. Got my dad thinking about trading up to a S2000. They ended up not wanting to give us a good price on the Prelude (big surprise.) So now we have an '01 Prelude and an '05 S2000, I think that worked out well 
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From: Hopedale, MA
Originally Posted by bguernsey,Mar 9 2005, 06:28 PM
I've purchased 3 cars from this particular dealer and I can say that every time it was a difficult deal to close and that I felt they were attempting to confuse and cheat me.