Jabs

I am almost ready to buy a new 2013 450H (Ultra Premium 1 with Blind Spot Monitoring) and want to know if anyone has recently scored any good deals in Canada.

I have the CarCostCanada.com invoice/dealer price and am factoring in the standard 3-6% dealer mark-up ... any other tips on getting a good deal?

P.S. I am in Toronto so have a few choices of dealers ... THANKS!

tnguyen41

i got 4500 off on mine if that helps. Ottawa. Ultra Premium 1

tnguyen41

Or get Carsaver.ca price and bring it to dealership. I'd imagine you can do better in TO than I did in ottawa since we only have 2 dealerships. I walked in on a Monday morning, knew what I wanted to walk out with. They said 1k, then 1.5k off, they insisted they couldn't do more, so I got up to leave, as soon as I reached for my jacket, the sales manager walked in and gave me what I wanted. To be honest, the carsaver report was 4300 off, the manager probably misheard and gave me 4500.

If you buy one off the lot then insist you have the 12.1 version of the maps and not the 11.1 version. I'm still fighting to get a free upgrade. Silly how a 2013 still rolling off lot with 2011 map data.

Hope this helps.

Jabs

Thanks for the info ... I'll check out the maps issue. This is very helpful.

Did you get $4,500 off the MSRP (i.e. pre-tax price) or did you get $4,500 of the out-the-door after tax amount?

tnguyen41

MSRP. So more like 5100 after tax. Carsaver report is free so use it for ammo and shop around. If you want them to nego that price for you then give them a call. I don't think the service will cost you anything and will save you the unpleasant nego experience.

Ps. Our American friends are getting 1k+ below invoice which is ridiculous, especially considering the vehicle is 10k less in the US.

tnguyen41

Pss: you might want to rethink the decision to go with the H though. My own experience is I absolutely love the vehicle probably love it way more if it was 10k less. However Canadian winters absolutely negated the hybrid gas savings. I'm averaging 12.5L/100km from beginning of Dec til now. Getting better as weather gets warmer but for 4 months of the year, you have to pretend you're running in a rx350. I hear the resale is a bit crummy too since people have ideas of having to replace the hybrid battery and such.

If probably would've made a different decision if someone told me this before I bought. Likely it would've been a more loaded rx350.

Jabs

I hear you ... I've gone back and forth on the RX 350 vs. RX 450H issue more times than I care to admit.

But my wife is really keen on putting her money where her mouth is on the environmental issue. Hopefully we'll save some money over the years ... especially if gas prices go up and Toronto traffic keeps us in stop and go traffic.

Anyone score great deals on the RX 350 in Toronto??

vlad_a

I've calculated out that owning RX350 is more cost-efficient than RX450h, despite the difference in gas consumption. Such things as financing charges were factored-in.

Still, I bought the 450h because I love the technology behind it. Plus, it is the only logical upgrade from a Prius we traded-in .

Droid13

Wow, that is really surprising to me. During the same time period I've been getting around 9.6L/100km on average. When it's been extra cold and miserable I might just push up to 10.5 briefly but the milder days help me bring it back to my average. I reset my bar graph once a month and they've all been consistently just under 10. However, with over 6 yrs driving a Camry Hybrid I've learned a lot of tricks that are transferable to the RXh, but I've found they are not nearly as obvious to learn on the RXh.

I bought the h specifically because I love the way the Toyota Hybrids work too, I can't stand driving cars with regular auto transmissions now, they seem primitive to me (although some people hate them from a reverse point of view). If the RX450H did not exist, I would not have purchased an RX350. The premium on my Camry Hybrid I made back, but the Lexus "h" premium is probably too high to overcome directly, but to me was not just about cost of fuel, for me it was the right complete package for my wish list.

tnguyen41

Droid, how many km do you have on yours? I still have under 2500 km on mine. Dealer claims I need to break it in for around 8-10000km and won't do a thing about it.

Also I park outside and commute 15km. This probably doesn't let the vehicle warm up properly.

All excuses to myself so that I don't feel like I bought a lemon.

Droid13

Yea, that doesn't leave much time at all to warm up, so not too surprising your winter numbers are not that good. My commute is about 25km, but about half of that is on highway so that helps with the warm up. I have 70,000km on the odo.

If your only experience driving hybrid is in winter, then you'll be in for a pleasant surprise come spring, they really do so much better in mild temps. That's why the latest hybrid generations in each model now have the exhaust heat recovery systems to try to keep more heat internally. When hybrids are running efficiently they don't end up generating a lot of engine heat which is fine except for winter when demands of interior heat and keeping engine at operating temperatures becomes a big issue. Heat then takes priority over efficiency.

If you do mainly city driving, you can usually notice significantly better numbers come spring just by trying to drive us much as possible around 60 to, at most, 65kph with the hybrid gauge in the very first section. Hold off letting the needle push into the second section when cruising if you can. The RXh is very good at slipping into unofficial EV mode by itself in the above situation once its warm.