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Mattel Disney Pixar Diecast CARS: The Ultimate Guide to Kmart CARS Day 3 – October 17, 2009

What is it again?

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This Saturday (October 17, 2009) at 11:00 AM, Kmart’s around the country will be selling SEVEN exclusive Mattel Disney Pixar Diecast CARS with “rubber” tires that are ONLY available at Kmart.

Here is your checklist. It’s the CARS on the left in full color – the CARS available ONLY at the last event are grayed out.

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So, how exactly does this procedure work?

At around 10:30-10:59 AM (your local time), they will start handing out numbered tickets. They are either available at the customer service desk or they will set up a small table by the toy section.

Each Kmart store has been shipped a number of boxes (there are 24-CARS in each box this year … case assortment listed towards the end of this post). The actual boxes per store will vary and there is no set number.

At 11:00 AM, they will start drawing numbers by the table in the toy section. It is a random draw so just because you show up an hour early or 2-minutes before it starts, it’s supposed to be random. Don’t let the store try to tell you it’s by line-up order.

When your number is selected, you will have 5-minutes to select 5 CARS to purchase. They are $3.99 each plus tax.

You can do quick math on the number of people versus the number of Piston Cup racers. Of the 24 CARS in each case, there are 19 Piston Cup racers – so if your store gets 12 CASES, there will be 228 Piston Cup racers available and only the 46th person will not get a chance to buy 5 Piston Cup racers – mathematically – in reality, it’s a crapshoot if you really draw 46 as to what you get a chance to look at or buy.

And then?

In a perfect scenario, there are more boxes available than people so you will get to go again and again. In other scenarios and cities where there are more people than boxes, you can only hope to get a low number but don’t worry too much – many TakeFivers (when they are not insulting each other) will take time out to trade or sell with you.

And like any chance thing – you might chose a Kmart with hardly anyone there or you might be at the Kmart with 100 people and 16 boxes so do the math. Look to see how many people there are and that there are 19 Piston Cup racers per box.

But you never know, some people might draw is happy to buy 2 CARS – or some kid was super excited to buy a Dinoco McQueen so you never know.

Ticket Distribution Issues

The process seems pretty straightforward. You ask for a ticket, they give you one but believe it or not, it gets fouled up. The rules are pretty specific – ‘every person who is capable of reaching for a ticket is entitled to one.’ This would seem to imply pretty much anyone older than 6-months … but there are some stores that will hand them to anyone and others who are so restrictive they will only try to hand them to one member of the a family (if you are paranoid – split up the family and avert each others eyes – no hugging or kissing 🙂  ). Again, the rule above is the official Kmart corporate policy. If you think you might have problems, you can go back to a 2008 post and print out the memo.

When Should You Get to the Store?

In 98% of the stores, it’s an orderly process – they hand out tickets until about 10:59 AM and it’s a RANDOM drawing so you might still be breathing hard as you raced in and get #2 or you should up early and draw #27 … the official procedure says it’s a random drawing so do not let them try and convince you it’s line-up by time. But I would definitely try to show up at least 15-minutes ahead of time as there have been one or two stores that jumped the gun and start selling before 11 AM.

Buying Limit

The official policy is 5 CARS until your number is drawn again or in many stores, when there are more boxes than people, then people can start buying more.

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The Pre-Sale

In case you missed it, on 9/27 & on 10.2 – there were FULL SEALED FACTORY cases available for $95.76 and contained the following assortment …

Kmart-Singles-Car-Day-3-Case

This is the case assortment that stores will be getting – of course, there’s no guarantee that it’s 100% accurate for 100% of the cases as we discovered last time.

Coupons?

You betcha. First, there is a special TakeFiveADay coupon – banner link above (it’s in the rotation so if you don’t see it at the top of the hit, tab to your browser url bar and hit SHIFT RETURN to refresh & reload the page and the Kmart ad should show up, please click on it to support TakeFive – thanks!)

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The coupon can appear confusing because the name the retailers (and Mattel) call the singles line is “CARS CHARACTER VEHICLE ASSORTMENT” while to the AVERAGE SHOPPER, when you says CARS assortment, you might mean ANY CARS item but this coupon is good for any CARS item other than the singles … and Kmart has been re-stocking other CARS items including the Mater Tall Tales items (LLC-20 points out that Kmart has the best deal on the MTT 4-packs at $14.99 and on the Tractor Tippin’ game) … the coupon has a UPC code that is covered up but will ring in the register as any CARS item other than $3.99 singles … so this coupon is worth anything from $.59 to $4.00 depending on what CARS item you choose.

And there is a $5 off if you buy $50 coupon.

Is My Kmart Participating?

In theory, every Kmart is participating but you can call to check. We have a spreadsheet HERE that lists every Kmart store – however this list is now a year old so a particular store may have closed or might have been rebranded as Sears. Call to verify!

Sears?

Yes, Sears & Kmart are now owned by the same investment company so if you do not live near a Kmart, check out your Sears store if they have a toy section – many if not all the Sears stores that have a toy section (or was formerly a Kmart) might get these CARS but instead of a special day or event, they will simply put them out so you can actually start checking today as they should have received the boxes already and may have already put them out.  😉

Or of course, just buy them at Target in the wacky Final Lap Wacky Packing Collection …

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See you at the Big K on Saturday. Remember to send in photos as the Sun moves across the sky and we here on the West Coast will have the last start to the event so send in pics and stories as the fun begins …

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16 October 2009 Mattel Disney Pixar CARS, Retail 53 Comments

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