2013 Toyota 86 Part 1: The Deal
Crunching the numbers of our 86 purchase
By Imthishan Giado
There are three things I tell people that you should never, ever, do when buying a new car. Never buy a first-generation car, never buy it without test driving it first and never hand over a deposit without knowing exactly which specification you’re paying for. Guess what I did?
OK, so when I put down the deposit for my 2013 Toyota 86, I broke every one of my own rules – and I certainly don’t recommend that you don’t do it, either. But there’s some very good reasons why I did.
First – I have a history of buying cars straight off the assembly lines. When the Aurion came in 2007, I had the first ones – and it was the same story with the my Prado in 2003. With my MX-5, I waited nearly a year but since hardly anyone bought that car, it really didn’t help much. Point is, modern cars are built so well these days and tested so extensively that you are unlikely to find too many niggles or fixes. Manufacturers also do a better job now of supporting first-run customers; for instance McLaren is making power and ICE upgrades retroactively available to those who took the first plunge on the MP4-12C.
The second point is harder to defend. The fact remains that I was putting money down on a car without having the faintest clue how it drove. That might be all right for buying something like a midsize-saloon like a Sonata, but a purpose-built sports car that needs to wrap around your skin like a wetsuit? What if I didn’t like it?
One ace remained up my sleeve: I knew I would be getting a chance to drive the car at the Yas launch, so I’d have at least one chance to make up my mind. But what I didn’t know is that they were all automatic cars, not the manual I had specified on my order. That day ended with me knowing that even the automatic was an excellent car, punchy, agile and eager to get the tail out. But how would the clutch feel in daily driving? Would the notchy manual on the display car end up being a deal breaker? Would my choice of penny-pincher base spec leave me with no A/C and windup windows?
No way to know until I actually drove it out of the showroom.
So I put my faith (and well in excess of AED95,000) in the hands of AFM’s Nadeem Haider, who booked a manual unit from the very first shipment of customer cars (excluding the batch used for the Yas launch) under my name. Three batches were inbound to the UAE; from that batch only pearl white, black and red were available in manual guise. I could have special ordered an orange full-spec manual car – my preferred choice. Bad news though – that would take up to three months to arrive, far too long to satisfy the voracious appetites of our readers. Black was out – not in this country and red, well my last car was dark red so repetition is the enemy of inspiration.
Taking everything into consideration, there was no choice but to order a full spec white car and hope that it would live up to the online hype.
So how do the numbers break down? The base car costs AED 95,000 (full spec available here) for which I would be paying cash. Want to finance it instead? Nadeem says most customers can expect a rate of 4.5% based on a downpayment of AED 19,000. The monthly payment – and note these are guidelines, rather than exact figures – are as follows:
- Take a loan for three years, you’ll be paying AED 2,396 a month;
- Select four years and it shrinks to AED 1,868
- And if you stretch all the way to five years, the monthly payment tumbles to AED 1,552.
Sports car insurance is usually a stumbling block for many. Thanks to the plethora of accidents involving sports cars and their higher repair costs, rates of up to 8% are enforced on two-door cars here which could mean as much as AED 7,600 for the 86 – ouch. Age and experience also plays factors with under-25s or those who have their licence for less than a year paying far higher rates as well.
Happily, AFM’s insurance partner Arab Orient Insurance does not classify the 86 as a sportscar (don’t ask me why) so you get a massively reduced rate, a huge incentive to choose them over my usual insurance firm. As I’m well over 25 – sigh – I paid a rate of 3.99% which with passenger coverage works out to AED 4,190. If I had been under 25, the rate would be 6.5%, or AED 6,575.
I also paid for rustproofing (hey, you can never be too careful!) and 3M tint for the side and rear windows for AED 700 and AED 800 respectively.
All of that worked out to a grand total of AED 100,690. For, let me point out, a car I had never driven before.
Gulp.
A very special thanks to Al Futtaim Toyota’s Suzan, Arshad, Raymond, Nadeem, Richard and Julian for assisting with this report.
Not one picture without a smile in it! That’s got to tell a good story…
MY monthly budget payment limited and is no more than 300$ can I purchase any high model land cruiser tape cars from your company in way of your company branch of Iraq?