When a Toyota dealer or any other auto dealer advertises a price, usually with a deeply discounted price, or a % off price and at the bottom of the ad in very small print says to get the advertised price you must finance through the dealers distributor or agent, then this is _ bait and switch---PERIOD! You can not get that price if you want to pay cash unless you pay a high fee, say like $2000. This is done in my state, FLORIDA! There is also another name for this practice used among themselves for those in the business, LOW BALL.
Bait and switch is getting a customer into a showroom for something that was sold last week Lowball is offering a homeowner or for that matter, auto owner, 40%+ less then the asking price, for "something", knowing that they "must take the offer for financially time sensitive reasons", (large looming debt) What the dealer is doing is perfectly legal, the price will be met if the buyer finances the deal through a financial institution that they control or own, as it's advantageous to them, they make the offer, If it's not advantageous to you, don't accept it.
What my experience has always been is when you trade cars they are going to screw you one way or the other, coming and going.
I'm very sure that their ad price is legal. I actually like it when they do this, because it serves as a loud and vivid warning sigh that the dealership is one that I don't want to deal with. The last time I walked off of a dealership lot (it was a Toyota lot, interestingly enough) I had only been on the lot for about 30-seconds. We wound up buying another make at another dealership later that month. It's a Caveat emptor world....but sometimes? They let you know in advance that they're crooks!
