in-demand car buying: 2022 edition

April 23, 2022 3:11 PM

Turns out rolling on down to the local dealership is not going to work. What is?

It's just about time to replace my very old car. I want to check a few models out in person. All of them are new, plug-in hybrid small SUVs. When I checked in person, the local Toyota dealership was entirely out of the plug-ins with a ~4 month waiting list you could pay to get on; the Kia dealership was entirely out of them with no anticipated new inventory date; and I literally could not get anyone to even greet me at the Hyundai place (but I looked at the lot and didn't see any of the models I'd read about, anyway.)

So what's a person to do who really needs to do a test drive before buying a car? Is there a site that can check actual inventories for me? Does one make appointments? I'm in the bay area, but understand that I may need to travel to get this done.

posted by fingersandtoes to Shopping (5 answers total)

Bad news, car buying is totally a different game right now. Here is what we did to get our car. We had a relative idea of what we wanted by looking through car reviews on different websites - we had maybe 3-4 options we were open to. We went on Kelly Blue Book and looked for any of those car types within 60 miles on a Friday night. Saturday morning first thing we called ALL of the dealerships that had any of the options we were looking for, we reached one right away, told the dealer to hold the car and we were on our way, drove 45 minutes out to the car with a check in hand, test drove it, paid for it with zero negotiation, and drove it off the lot that day.

Maybe someone can share a more hopeful story, but I think that is the tale of car shopping right now.
posted by Toddles at 3:52 PM on April 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

You could look for a rental to test-drive, through Turo if regular rental agencies don’t have the specific models.
posted by songs about trains at 4:57 PM on April 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: One way would be to download the CarGurus app (or maybe AutoTrader or similar app would work, too, but I tested with CarGurus), select new car, put in the make and model and your zip code and it will show you dealerships that have that model with trim levels. I checked the RAV4 Prime with a SF zip code and there were several models within around 40 miles.
posted by Short End Of A Wishbone at 5:18 PM on April 23, 2022

It's really hard to get a hybrid or PHEV right now and you'll pay a $5K-$10K premium. My experience (not in the bay area) is that most dealers are jerks right now except for Nissan and Subaru. I test drove a Subaru and didn't buy it (they didn't have any!) but I test drove a Nissan Rogue and bought it at MSRP which is pretty rare.
posted by credulous at 8:39 PM on April 23, 2022

Best answer: You could talk to Lindsay at CarPal, who got a friend exactly the car he wanted. There are also other brokers who will find you a car, but that’s the one I’ve heard of having the best success lately.
posted by DaveP at 2:17 PM on April 25, 2022