I got a buddy looking to buy an 04.
We got all the paperwork from edmunds and kbb and the dealers for the most part are right on with the edmunds price, except for this charge they're calling TDA, which is supposedly toyota advertising, comes out to about 2.2% of invoice.
Anyone else have to pay this? Seems like a scam to me where they wanted a way to get more than the edmudns TMV, so they came up with a bull&*^&^ charge that is "non-negotiable".

Cheers,
Ziad

Sounds bogus to me as well. Advertising costs should be listed as overhead costs and therefore part of their margins. Sounds like some weird accounting practices going on there. And also having a percentage basis on vehicles is weird, should be a per sales basis if there even is one. Dont think I paid it but it may have been included in the profit margins and I didnt know it.

Did they throw this on you after a price was reached or were they pretty up fron about it? I did a little search on it and found a 2% example from july '02 so it has been going on with edmunds for a while.

side note, how do those hella air horns sound?? Ya like em?

TDA is "apparently" the advertising charge the mfr passes onto each dealer and is supposedly built into the invoice price the dealer pays the mfr. Dealers around here will show you their invoices with TDA on them but that really means nothing since the true invoice price a dealer pays the mfr is minus holdback and I'm sure they guard those sheets very very dearly, even internally. I hear TDA varies by region. In Chicago, its $325 per vehicle - used to be $250 around MY2000. Most dealers won't budge on it claiming the mfr charges it to them and they have to pass it on. I did buy one new Toyota without paying TDA, but there were some extenuating circumstances. If you work hard enough, you can get a dealer to drop TDA, but it's usually not worth it. Just wait for a rebate to roll around and eat it unless you're after a "slow mover".