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Comments
Both of these people are valuable contributors to this board, and I hope that this recent barrage of insults will not drive them away. I personally want to thank them both for the assistance they have rendered me. Each has taken the time to send me private E-mails, answering questions I had about my LC. I didn't buy my car from them, but that didn't stop them from answering a question or trying to help me solve a problem.
Thank You,
LC2000
So, let's back to the real business of this forum, providing POSITIVE information.
Dude, that's a long time to carry a grudge for something as a bad salesguy experience. I highly doubt he is there now as I highly doubt Dianne was there at the time. Move on.
I have been a member of this board since its first incarnation and fully support Dianne and Cliffy. I may not always agree with them, but consider them valuable and vital members of these discussions.
So there.
HiC
And, I don't even drink.
Thanks to those who know me well enough in many ways to post positively. "Whatever" to those who don't.
-Di
Re: Post #53 Thanks for the info.
Dianne/Cliffy- i just talked to Concord Toyota and they told me that they can not do a navigation system factory installation on my 2000 LC. Is that correct? Any input from you would be appreciated as i really want to add this nav system. Being in a crowded city (Bay Area-SF) it sure helps to have one in your truck.
To anyone who have done this pls let me know also.
thanks,
victor
Someday,
Somehow,
A life awaits you.
Cliffy:
I guess the guys on the floor stealing your leads was just too much?
Anyway, best of luck in the new gig.
Autoweb charges the dealers on a per-lead basis. Typically, it's $25 per lead. If you log into autoweb and request best-pricing on a Honda Accord, a Toyota Camry, a Mazda 626, a Ford Taurus, and a Nissan Altima, that's 5 cars total. If they have 3 Toyota dealers, 4 Honda dealers, 2 Nissan dealers, 2 Mazda dealers, and 2 Ford dealers in your area to send quote requests to, that's 13 total requests that fly thru the net at $25 each. Mathematically, it nets Autoweb $325 on one shot. Multiply it times the thousands of requests a day. Wow!
Cars.com charges dealers a monthly fee of anywhere from $750 to $1500 (high metro areas) every month no matter how many leads are provided.
Carsdirect.com and a few other sites have wanted, in the past, 1% of the price of the car. Meaning, if the car's a $30,000 car, they get $300 from the dealer for providing the customer. The pricier the car, the more they want your attention so the better the deal appears initially.
Priceline bills $200 for every car sold thru them, period. Echo, Camry, Landcruiser, regardless of the profit margin it's a flat $200. And, Stoneage is another one that comes to mind that charges per-lead like Autoweb.
In this day and age, when consumer are so aware, educated, and able to get into the internet and able to go right to a place like Edmunds here and price out what their sense of invoice is, why not connect directly with the dealerships and fleet managers and explain what you think is fair and go with it. If the dealers or fleet folks don't agree, move to the next one. Good way to do this is thru email because it's faster and more time efficient. If you make an offer you think is reasonable but all of the fleet folks say "no" then it's time to reconsider your offer or reconsider the model or features you want.
The online services glean money by the thousands off dealers, and it affects your bottom line greatly without you realizing it.
Last spring, my better half insisted on a silver Limited PT Cruiser 5-speed, and refused to budge. Ugh. It took me 2 weeks, 12 emails and even more phone calls as a consumer to find someone willing to build-order the car for me for $100 over invoice. And, I would have paid more but she made that offer to me right off the bat with no hassle. I set the order in May and no, we have no car yet. It's slated to drop this month, later this month.
Did I get the best deal? Nope, not the best deal for me because we really needed the new car sooner. Before the registration was due on the old car (92 Honda Prelude), and before the old car needed a bit of repair to the engine, and before it went over 100k miles. I'd have paid more for a car sooner, but the trouble was, there simply was no car sooner. I'd have paid more had there been a car sooner, though. I hit the online places I just posted above and no luck at all, not even at full MSRP.
It's not always about money. I know I have bestowed some unbelievable pricing upon folks for LCs (and lately, Sequoias) across the USA... even lower than they expected or imagined.
It's very good advice to follow that path, ie. try a few emails to locals and fleet folks locally to you, or close enough for you to drive comfortably. There are some very good people out there in fleet departments who will work with you. Of course, if you strike out and give up, I'm more than happy to help, or email with advice, as is Cliffy in VA too. He's going thru a job change but regardless of that, he's a kind, decent man and is very knowledgeable as well. We do pay attention to what's said here, and respond to that which isn't completely out of line.
Of course, no matter where you purchase, I always wish ya'll well with the beautiful new Landcruisers you buy. In the 2001 models, a handful seem to have stereo bass-control problems and I feel that Toyota will find a fix for it soon. It may take a few more cars/calls and for them to hear from a few more buyers, but there are so few Landcruisers allocated as yet, it's possibly just not enough of a roar.
Anyway, I am not here *just* to market cars. I have plenty of other things to sell, and plenty of ways to sell them. Answering the questions I am able to answer here and responding to everyone's needs here that I can is really what it's all about. Interestingly enough, I have found that for the most part, the folks I have sold off the board here are *usually* (but not always) very far away and quite a few have literally vanished from here now that they have their cars. It's the same with a few other sites/models. Lots of folks contact me for pricing on lots of cars that read Edmunds forums. But, not everyone posts. I hope this helps everyone, not just those who post, to practice due diligence in getting their fair, decent deals.
--Dianne
dianne@earthlink.net
I have no doubt that your buying experience with Dianne was good for you. SHe appears to be good at what she does. But how can you justify her bashing a post I made about a potentially good source for buying a truck.
Edmunds is for the buyer. Not the Seller. period!
If I post a POTENTIAL source to get a deal on a car and have proof that in the past many have purchased cars from this source at great savings, a salesman on this topic SHOULD NOT ARBITRARILY BASH IT!!!!!!!!
You have purchased your truck but many have not and may find that some internet buying services actually work for them. Some may find that e-mailing or face to face works best for them. But to completely dismiss a source because as a salesman that source is a threat SUCKS!
Dianne,
Post on the board and sell trucks (As I said before if it works for you I can't blame you) but PLEASE DO NOT DISCOURAGE FOLKS FROM EXPLORING ALL OPTIONS BECAUSE OF YOUR PERSONAL BIAS!
TO ORDER FROM CARSDIRECT TAKES ABOUT 1 HOUR TO INITIATE. IF IT WORKS GREAT! IF IT DOESN'T IS THAT HOUR MORE THAN YOU WOULD HAVE SPENT SENDING E-MAILS OR DRIVING AROUND TOWN NEGOTIATING! NO!
Dianne in your own words:
"It took me 2 weeks, 12 emails and even more
phone calls as a consumer to find someone willing
to build-order the car for me for $100 over invoice. "
Now if you could have e-mailed $%@&@.com and got the same deal would you have? Might your search have been easier? The key word here is POTENTIAL SOURCE!
One should explore all avenues. And now a days dealers are not the only source.
TRUCK
Thanks for the info. Valuable info. Now i have to look at an aftermarket Nav system.
Dianne/Cliffy - just ignore those unnecessary comments in this forum. And may i say that you guys are wonderful in sending out any info that we want. I never bought any cars from the two of you yet you will always take your sweet time to answer any questions we have. You're doing a good job. Just keep it up. Can we keep ths forum an informative one instead????
thanks again,
vic
truck
BG CF C7
-Dianne
dianne@earthlink.net
PS. Thanks, ladies and gents, for the kindness. My email this morning runneth over with your smiles!
I bashed carsdirect.com for their marketing strategy and ultimate business practices. They do things very unethically, although at the outset, it appears "open and good". I am allowed to post my opinion here as you are yours.
Ultimately, it's the person seeking the car who decides if they won or lost in the end. I have heard from enough people in recent months and weeks that my LC pricing is way better than carsdirect.com, so I am not concerned with losing business to them.
Cliffy is right in that a car has to come from a dealership. And, I speak from experience in that all three of the deals I have personally done with carsdirect.com (in 1999) til I dumped them took a month or more to be paid for. A month! The first time, it was a "paperwork glitch"... the 2nd one was blamed on the customer (who paid cash!!). The third was inexcusable, and I began to see the pattern. I dumped them fast. It's a bad sign to get the runaround for a check for a car for 4 to 5 WEEKS after delivering the car. It's also bad business to do business with someone who cannot pay you for a $100 over invoice deal for an entire month even though you know the customer's paid them. I gave them every chance.
Yes, you can log in there and get all sorts of pricing. I'd take their suggested selling pricing with a grain of salt. Chances are, and I did try to point that out in the prior post, you'll get better pricing avoiding all middle-men and buying services. Heck, you can research and request quotes from well over 25, 30 places online and every one of the 1000+ dealerships for Toyota alone online. You can know what every dealer thinks their LC product is worth. Response time is a good indicator as well.
Truck, there isn't any reason to be at odds over this. Not really.
Any of you who own one can you atest to this?
For those wanting carsdirect LC pricing as of today
Invoice $45,971 for the 01 without rear seat
What they would sell it to you for with destination charge is $49,192.
Too rich for me but this is what I would get over the Sequoia give the slim price difference we are seeing now.
But recently, driving up a muddy rise with a load of firewood in the back, I shifted into low and the light didn't come on. And I got stuck, had to back up and go home another way. I tried to look but couldn't tell whether all four wheels were spinning (it was pretty dark).
The guy at the dealership tells me the mechanic says I could replace the "transfer case switch" (for $146), but that the differential is locking fine and the switch only controls the light on the dash.
That doesn't seem right to me. Anyone know anything about this? A '93 is ancient compared to what you usually discuss here, but I thought I'd try. Thanks in advance.
Jmcl
You have had bad experiences with carsdirect as the dealer. I have seen many that are happy as buyers.
1. Your price for a LC may be cheaper than CD but many of us live on the east cost and the post that I gave was directed to those folks.
2. I know of many situations where CD has sold cars for well under market eating the difference btwn dealer price and their selling price.
(Ie: one of the guys on the I30 thread purchased his I30 for about 3k under MSRP when NO ONE was discounting them AT ALL)
3. So, as I said before I am sorry your experiences were bad but Carsdirect continues to be a potential resource to those that want to give it a try. Even your last post did nothing to address why you believe they change their prices. You basically complained about how they paid you.
Most consumers don't care about that.
But as I said earlier I am dine with this issue.
truck
All years lock the center diff when in Low range.
jamcl: If you shifted into Low range AFTER you first got stuck, it may not have engaged since you have to turn the center diff over once for it to lock. If you were already spinning, your front wheels had no chance to make the center lock. Backing up and re-trying should have corrected this. Even then, in real slippery conditions, without the rear locked also, you may have still only had two wheels getting torque: The one in the rear with the least traction, and the one in the front with the least traction. Open diffs are like that.
I take it you did not have the optional front and rear lockers on that '93? With everyting locked up, that thing should be able to climb a waterfall.
HiC
Easy on the insults and take your own advice. Express your own opinion but state it as such, rather than fact.
Res ipsa.
sv12
Steve
The 4WD versions of the Sequoia all have traction control. I believe it is a standard feature - called "Active Trac" To quote the Toyota Specs:
"Active TRAC
Using sensors at all four wheels to monitor a loss of traction, Active TRAC employs brake and throttle control to reduce wheelspin and transfer torque to the wheel with the most traction. The system can be found on the Land Cruiser and 4-wheel-drive versions of 4Runner and the all-new Sequoia."
Typical traction control. Basically, in an open diff system (as opposed to LS or locked), the wheel with the least resistance will get more torque, robbing torque from where you need it. The traction control "fools" it by applying brakes to the wheel that is spinning and throttle to get the non-spinning wheel moving. All this happens in miliseconds as each spinning wheel gets the brakes and throttle is applied throughout. Theoretically, this means that you will have power to as many wheels as there is necessary. Theoretically, this is way better than LS. This should also be easy to drive, especially with the Vehicle Skid control: Just point the wheel in the direction you want to go and give it gas.
Limited Slip works on a mechanical basis (usually) wherein either a clutch in the diff or viscious coupling fluid react to one wheel spinning by transferring torque to the opposite wheel. Problem is that as soon as the initial spinning wheel equalizes with the second wheel, all the torque is transferred back to the first wheel. On ice this can create the unnevring sensation of having traction, and losing it, only to get it back, and to lose it again, etc. (This is my experience in Chevy P/U's with LS anyway) This is not only scary, but an easy way to swap ends if you are, um, driving less carefully than you should for the conditions. But I never do that, nope, not I. Anymore.
Best way to know which you prefer, of course, is to test drive them both in some really low traction environment. Got any mud handy? Can you wait for it to snow?
Hope that helped.
HiC
HiC: Dude, I have moved on(finally!). I bought a Toyota LC and I am satisfied with it.
Dianne: My comment on post #55 was a knee jerk response that was unfair to you. Please accept my apologies.
No matter where you are, dealership to dealership, what happened to you should never happen to anyone. It's a shame you weren't resoected. And, in all of the Toyota stores I have worked in for the last 20+ years (half my life!), there's always at least one bad apple. That may be the case in many businesses.
-Di
200m = 656' = .12mi
70kph = 44mph
HiC
-Di
I have asked the dealer to check alignment but was told that is are no adjustments?? I've owned 3 other LCs and none have had this problem. I don't have the separate center (or front) locking diff.
I would love to hear any ideas. The dealer has been very little help.
Other than that, check u-joints, pinions, wheel bearings, etc.
Dianne
dianne@earthlink.net
Here's my situation...moving back to Maine in a couple months and I've got to replace my '94 Jeep Grand Cherokee w/ a SUV more equipped to handle rougher conditions on/off road (Maine has both!) First choice was a Discover 2, however after extensive fact finding and the help of postings on Edmunds, I've decided against it. That led me to the 4Runner. Dependability, durability, a real off-roader. Only drawback...V6. The Jeep has definitely spoiled me on power, but reason would have me think about economics here. Size is also an issue...wouldn't mind something slightly bigger. Ergo the Land Cruiser. Problem here is price tag. Benefit V8, size and damn the luxury is nice! Almighty dollar rules though and the price tag dictates I search a couple years back to find something in the '97 - '96 range.
All right, no more pontificating...time for the questions....
1. Am I going to get worse rate on MPG w/ the LC vs. my Grand Cherokee.
2. What would a reasonable price tag be on a '97 40th anniversary LC w/ 69k?
3. I've read about 400 postings tonight on LC. Anything I should know about the pre '98 models?
4. Is the '98 model worth selling a kidney for?
Here's my situation...moving back to Maine in a couple months and I've got to replace my '94 Jeep Grand Cherokee w/ a SUV more equipped to handle rougher conditions on/off road (Maine has both!) First choice was a Discover 2, however after extensive fact finding and the help of postings on Edmunds, I've decided against it. That led me to the 4Runner. Dependability, durability, a real off-roader. Only drawback...V6. The Jeep has definitely spoiled me on power, but reason would have me think about economics here. Size is also an issue...wouldn't mind something slightly bigger. Ergo the Land Cruiser. Problem here is price tag. Benefit V8, size and damn the luxury is nice! Almighty dollar rules though and the price tag dictates I search a couple years back to find something in the '97 - '96 range.
All right, no more pontificating...time for the questions....
1. Am I going to get worse rate on MPG w/ the LC vs. my Grand Cherokee.
2. What would a reasonable price tag be on a '97 40th anniversary LC w/ 69k?
3. I've read about 400 postings tonight on LC. Anything I should know about the pre '98 models?
4. Is the '98 model worth selling a kidney for?
2 issues on the 80 series are front axle seals (replace every 60K or so) and front brake pads don't last very long (15 to 25K if you're lucky).
MPG on the 4.5 liter (96-97 LC) is worse than on the 98+ V-8.
The Jeep is at least as competent off-road as a 4-Runner. If you trust it (a big IF in Jeeps), you will be much better off ($$ wise) by simply adding some aftermarket off-road improvements to it.
my .02.
HiC
As for the 97 LC special edition, those are fairly high miles for a 97. That's an older 6-cyl motor, as the 98 and up had a V8 (still do!) and the 99's optioned to rear air cond as well.
-Di
http://www.edmunds.com/edweb/editorial/confessions/index.html
Anyway, job done. May be of interest to others on this board.
HiC
Is there a way to access the TSB from the web? I thought NHTSA and/or autopedia.com carried all the TSBs but, when I looked for this particular topic, I didn't find one.
-Dianne
HiC
I know this does not answer your question about what to replace it with, but the Runner will be much better off road because of the construction of the vehicle.
The GC is a fine vehicle and does pretty good off road. I bought my '94 from the original owner w/ 94k on it. He used it to tow boats (V8 5.2L), which took a toll not only on the odometer, but the uni-body chassis as well. I think the body mounts are bad. Every bump I hit sounds like body is knocking against the mounts at each corner of the vehicle. For this reason I don't think a uni-body chassis will hold up in Maine.
Does anyone know which SUVs have uni-bodies?
I know at least that the Explorer has a semi-enclosed channel frame and that the 4Runner is solid...any more?
Can't afford a '98 LC unless its got high miles.
I don't want a pre '98 due to the gas mileage.
Guess I'm back to the 4Runners.
Does anyone know which years have that cool silver paint w/ matching fender flares? By what I've seen I think it is 98 and newer.
Unless you have some JGC malady that you know about or have a gut feeling about, I would say that you should do fine with a 94 JGC. While both the TFR and the TLC are most capable vehicles, the JGC is no slouch at all, although if given a choice of the three vehicles, (all things being equal) I would chose the TLC.