Unfortunately, it seems that Honolulu is not a good place to buy a Toyota. Honolulu ZIP codes result in higher prices in truecar.com than ZIP codes on the mainland.
The dealer knows they can sell that particular car for full list price. So they have no incentive to discount it.
OP, if car prices are non negotiable in Hawaii, have you considered buying a car in California where car market prices are lower during a vacation there or thru a friend, then have it shipped to Hawaii? I do not know if shipping cost to Hawaii is worth it for a Toyota, but food for thought.
Yeah, D lives in LA and we will be in SF in. A little while, so may consider it. 
OK, so the two quotes I got for the SAME dealership that has 3 of the cars I’m interested in ON THEIR LOT differed by a few hundred dollars. I asked the guy with the lower quote to figure out the trade in allowance for surrendering my 2000 Toyota van when I pick up the new car, so will see what reply I get from him.
I’m also trying to get a few quotes from the area around where we will be staying in CA, including shipping to HNL. Just curious to explore my options. Shipping from the East Coast seems like too much trouble and too expensive.
One car dealer in CA refused to give me a quote to sell me a car and ship CA to HNL. It looks like I may be stuck with the one company—take it or leave it.
Don’t ask the dealer to give you a quote with shipping, arrange your own shipping.
The dealer may have to know the destination of the car in order to do the paperwork correctly with respect to tax and licence related stuff.
Tax and license are NOT negotiable costs. B-) Duh. Get the price down first, then deal with the rest.
I don’t know what brand of vehicle you’re looking at but at least for Toyotas, CA dealers are not allowed to ship vehicles to HI. Servco is the distributor for HI. They’re not affiliated with Toyota USA. https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/toyota-usa-servco-and-hawaii.524884/
Ok. Thanks. Good to know.
Just got off phone with mechanic. He said he really doesn’t see folks with rodent in cars problems — saw them in the 80s.
He recommended a rav4 or other Toyota, not Volvo or other cars for reliability. Hmmm more to mull over.
Your mechanic is lucky…or maybe you don’t have mice in HI.
We have had mice issues twice.
We have seen mice and rats here and there, but fortunately we don’t have harsh winters so they haven’t been tempted by our vehicles. I think they prefer tropical fruit and similar for their edibles over vehicles.
I bought a new Prius a few months ago. It was a huge pain to buy - I went through about 5 dealerships until I found that was willing to ship the vehicle in from a dealership in another city, and then it took another 4 weeks to arrive even though they said it would only be 10 days. It would have taken >2 months to ship from Japan. I did get a ‘deal’ on it as I got the white one without paying the extra for that color. That said, I live in a region known for its love of gasoline consumption, and most dealerships just don’t sell hybrids at all.
I chose a Prius for the fuel efficiency, but the one thing that annoys me is that there is no trunk release from the driver’s seat or power rear door.
If you’re set on a hybrid or plug-in hybrid, maybe take a look at the Kia Niro. My co-worker drives the plain hybrid one and loves it. It’s a sedan/SUV crossover and very cute. The RAV4 hybrid is nice too - fuel consumption of a Corolla, and comes with all the upper-end RAV4 features.
What is a power rear door? The doors on the Prius we drove were all like regular car doors. Have only heard of power car doors in vans and similar.
Rear door = the 5th door (hatchback)
I was driving a Corolla before, so I thought I’d be able to pop the trunk from the driver’s seat or the SmartKey. Nope. Have to open it by hand all the time.
Lots of cars have power rear doors. My Subaru has one as does H’s Honda Pilot. Power rear doors are common.
That would be irksome that you can’t open hatchback easily. The Volvo has a feature where you can open it by passing your foot under read bumper. H’s fob opens his trunk. The old Volvo S40 we had would open trunk with a button from fob too.
Our longtime mechanic swears by the Toyota and Lexus lines for max reliability.