I appraise real estate (lots of city driving) and the navigation and blue tooth phone are nice features for my line of work thus a Prius appeared to be the perfect vehicle.

I shopped for a new package 7 or 8 Prius here in South Florida for over six weeks and did not have any luck locating either of these in stock. To compound matters gas prices started rising again followed by the IRS announcing the $3150 tax credit. With this the local dealers began to raise prices $3 - 7k above msrp.

The best deal I could locate was a package 7 plus leather trimmed seats for $31.5k. And this price included a wait for the vehicle to arrive. I later found an "in stock" package 8 at another dealer, test drove it, loved it, but this dealer did not want to budge much from it's $35.5k asking price. I understand supply and demand but realized I needed to look elsewhere.

I remembered that Carmax has new car dealerships including two Toyota dealers in in Maryland and Wisconsin. By shopping on line I was lucky enough to locate a new package 8 at the Carmax Toyota dealer in Laurel. Md for approx $1,000 under msrp ($28,300). Since Carmax posts their vehicle prices on line and there is no haggling I made a phone call last Tuesday and by Friday morning I was driving the vehicle back home from the DC area.

The $3k - 5k (minimum) savings was well worth the flight, time, and mileage costs involved in retrieving the vehicle. In addition my wife and I made it a weekend trip which included a great overnight stay in Charleston, SC.

We averaged about 46 mpg on Interstate 95 with speeds of 65 - 75 per hour and I've enjoyed over 53 mpg the first week back under more normal driving conditions.

Fyi - the dealer indicated they get out of region buyers all the time and spoke of a lady from California who has flown out twice for new Priuses. If you go this route keep in mind they usually do not have much (if any) inventory.

We feel lucky to have found this deal and look forward to our many years of fuel and environmental savings.