The salesman I have been working with just emailed me tonight to say that the sister dealer just took delivery of almost exactly the Hatchback I want. Blue Flame, no door trim or ugly rear bumper guard, six speed, black interior. Only thing it’s missing is the rear spoiler (which is a dealer option anyway). The big difference though is that it is an XSE while I had been looking for an SE. He says he can get it transferred as soon as this weekend for $22.5k. More than I was wanting to pay (hence why I was looking for an SE) but not a bad deal at all for an XSE. Mighty tempting, especially if I can negotiate that $22.5k number to be after tax and registration.
The other option is to put in a request to Toyota to have an appropriately configured 2020 SE allocated to the local dealer and then hope they decide to make one in the early batches for delivery in 6-12 weeks. Toyota doesn’t take orders so I can’t just place an order, I have to have the dealer request one and then eventually Toyota will make one in the right configuration when they feel like it.
So I need to decide, do I jump on the one at the sister dealer and pay a bit more for a higher trim, or do I put in a request and wait an indeterminate amount of time for Toyota to decide to make one the way I want?
Update: said fuckit and told the salesman that if they can roll the taxes and fees into the purchase price such that I’m financing $19k after $4k down they’ve got themselves a deal. We’ll see where that goes.