The car market is screwed up right now. The combination of a chip shortage and a shortage of used cars has led to previously unimaginable prices. Dealers can’t get their hands on product and some, see this as an opportunity to cash in.
As Reddit user u/Astroalpha2 pointed out, Long Island, NY Toyota dealership Millennium Toyota is trying to get as much as they can out of customers shopping for a 4Runner.
4Runners have a following (and some market defying value retention.) It’s no surprise Toyota sold nearly 130,000 last year. A lot of owners actually use them as intended, which is why Toyota gave it four different TRD trims: TRD Off-Road for $40,730, TRD Off-Road Premium for $43,325, and TRD Pro for $50,745.
Millenium Toyota, as of this writing, has just five 4Runners in stock, three of those are TRD models. And all three have markups.
The MSRP is $52,753. They tack on a $23,000 markup for a total price of $75,753. That’s Lexus money. And the reason? Literally written on the sign: “Limited availability”.
The same reasoning is given for this other TRD Pro. The MSRP is $52,569 with a $30,000 markup for a total of $82,569. “Limited availability” and the exterior color of “Lunar Rock” are emphasized as if that makes the markup OK. And it gets worse. I reached out to the dealer to get pricing on another 4Runner TRD Pro in their inventory and was told they are asking six figures for it. Try $135,763.
Some digging around the 4Runner owner forums shows that this behavior is not outside the norm. As far back as 2015, you will find discussions of 4Runner markups, which was right around the time Toyota introduced the TRD and TRD Pro trims for the 4Runner. It’s so bad lately that one forum is keeping track of dealers that aren’t marking up and keeping a list of the ones that are. So if you’re in the market for a 4Runner avoid this dealership and any others that are taking advantage of the inventory shortage. You can wait until the market gets better.
This one came to us via friend of the site Zerin Dube and friend of Zerin Ben Allison, who is hosting a 4Runner event in North Texas toward the end of September, check him out hereif that’s your thing.