“Ordering” not available nationwide

[Gail]

I was told by a salesman yesterday that I was not able to order what I wanted from Toyota because they are not allowing ordering on 4Runners at all. Am I misunderstanding the concept of “ordering”. My husband ordered his truck from Ford with every specific feature he wanted and they made it as such. So, when you guys say “ordering” are you getting one that is already allocated to a dealer and you bought it before it goes through the process? Please explain because it looks like I will never get mine at this rate. I am wanting a Platinum and I am in a gulf state and the dealers closest to me are not being very helpful. Thanks so much if you read all this

 

[kzrman]

Hi Gail,
Here is how the Toyota process works:
https://www.4runner6g.com/forum/threads/2025-4runner-ordering-and-allocations-explained.1233/

 

[MTN Dew]

Check out the Allocation List in this forum to find what you are looking for. It list trims, colors, options and the dealer that it is allocated to. You might have to cross state lines to find it or use Toyota's Smart Path and do it online. We are planning a 600 mi trip to get ours when our local dealer is 4 mi away. Our local dealer now has one allocated to them in late June, unfortunately. However it might be spoken for or subjected to mark ups. It also has add-ons I don't want. Markups is trending among dealers right now. Our dealer is known for this, the 4R in my profile pic was marked up $20k when new, many others were too. I walked away for a year and bought a slightly used one for less than market. Good luck finding your next ride.

 

[Hacksaw]

I was told by a salesman yesterday that I was not able to order what I wanted from Toyota because they are not allowing ordering on 4Runners at all. Am I misunderstanding the concept of “ordering”. My husband ordered his truck from Ford with every specific feature he wanted and they made it as such. So, when you guys say “ordering” are you getting one that is already allocated to a dealer and you bought it before it goes through the process? Please explain because it looks like I will never get mine at this rate. I am wanting a Platinum and I am in a gulf state and the dealers closest to me are not being very helpful. Thanks so much if you read all this

Correct, Toyota doesn't do buyer-customized orders of factory options**. For the people saying they "ordered" a 4runner, it would be more accurate to say they "claimed" one that was already put into the allocation pipeline and assigned to a particular dealership.

**If there is an incoming 4runner at your dealership-of-choice that is nearly what you want, except for some PIO (port-installed options), it is possible for the dealer with the allocation you claimed to delete or add PIOs, or they can request it anyway (i.e. no guarantee it will happen).

It's an irritatingly dumb process. At the very least, Toyota, each time they release an allocation of x vehicles spread across multiple dealerships, should put them all in an open pool for a couple days so that dealers can claim specific allocations (on a 1st come first served basis) based on their own customer's demands. After that 2 day window, any unclaimed ones then get assigned to dealerships based on Toyota's pre-determined quota per dealership, using Toyota's "self fulfilling prophecy" allocation algorithm.

PS, Platinums only recently appeared on allocation and few if any dealers are yet getting more than one. Most of those arer still in-transit. Most dealers likely have people on a waiting list for platinums so it may be a while (e.g. a couple months) before you'll get a platinum by just walking into a dealership...but you might get lucky e.g. if you want a color the people on the waiting list at your local dealer aren't interested in but that color is part of the dealer's allocation.

 

[WV76X]

Ford has an actually very effective system for ordering a vehicle built as the customer wants. You can even track online throughout the process and see key dates and a window sticker as soon as it’s built. I’ve done this three times with good results.

Toyota does not allow ordering. As mentioned, the dealer can reserve a vehicle for you they’re already receiving through an allocation. The reservation as far as I can tell has nothing to do with Toyota, but is with the dealer. I’ve used this method twice and it worked great as long as the vehicle I wanted was inbound. Some models, colors and options take longer to find, if available at all.