Edmunds.com | Inside Line | Auto Observer Your Account | Help | Directory
You are here:
![[F]](http://a332.g.akamai.net/f/332/936/12h/www.edmunds.com/media/townhall/webxicons/site.gif){kind=small}
Forums
Prices Paid: Buying & Leasing Experiences Honda Civic Prices Paid and Buying Experience
7390 messages, Last post on Aug 28, 2008 at 6:55 PM
You are in the Prices Paid: Buying & Leasing Experiences Forum. Your Hosts are car_man & kyfdx
I'm looking for some suggestions from others on this. As you may have read in my previous posts, I have been searching for a 2004 Civic LX with a 5 speed and side airbags in blue. Well, as it turns out, there were only a couple such cars withing a 5 state search area near me. The dealer near my house (McGrath Honda in Elgin, IL) had been trying to get one of the 2 cars that are out there in trade for one of their other cars. They had one of them in Madision Wisconsin that my sales rep was going to pick up, but when he called the other dealership on the phone, they let him know that one of their new sales reps had sold it the day before. Okay...understandable mistake I suppose. No harm done. The other dealer that had the exact car that I wanted was Honda of Lisle, Illinois. My local dealership tried to get them to trade something for the car, but they came back with trade options which they knew could not possibly be met (they were asking for cars that weren't available!). So after going back and forth with them, my sales person finally told me, "Warner, if you have to have the side airbags, you're going to have to buy the car from them, because they won't trade us anything that we can get for it." So relectantly (I wanted the McGrath Honda sales rep to get something for his troubles - he worked with me extensively and went on several test rides with me in different vehicles) I called Honda of Lisle. First I spoke with a normal sales rep, and told him what my offer from both McGrath Honda in Elgin and carsdirect.com was on the car that they had. He told me he'd check on it and call me back momentarily. Sure enough, another sales person (Mark, who apparently is the manager over at Honda of Lisle) gets on the phone with me and offers me the car for over $700 MORE than the quote that I got from McGrath Honda in Elgin! He went on to tell me that it was a very "rare" car and that it was the only one like it in a 5 state area, which was basically true. I explained to him that the reason the car was so "rare" was because not many people want the manual transmission. After a very heated conversation with him, letting him know that he had insulted my intelligence with his crazy offer, I told him to keep his "rare" car and that I would buy the car without the side air bags from the dealer that treated me right. Of course, less than an hour later the original rep from Honda of Lisle called me back asking me how things had gone (claiming that he hadn't spoken with Mark yet to find out from him how it had gone). I told him that they had gone terrible, that I was offended by their offer, and had purchased another car from someone else already (which was partially true). Then he had the gall to propose that I meet them "half way" on the price. I laughed at him and told him that he must not be listening to me - he kept saying "I understand where you're coming from" to which I kept responding "Obviously, you don't, or you'd know that I was not interested in anything other than the offer than I had originally from 2 other sources, but now that I knew how they conducted business I wouldn't buy the car from them if they offered it to me for $1,000 LESS than the other dealer. I also told him that I planned on writing to the Regional manager of Honda explaining what had happened. Now, I KNOW that it's the dealers option of how much they want to take for a particular car, but that was like highway robbery! I told both of the less than scrupulous sales reps at Honda of Lisle that they could have sold the car that night to me....I was fully prepared to come there an pick it up from them, if only they had been fair with me. Honda of Lisle has a decent website that shows their inventory....I'm going to keep track of this blue lx 5-speed with side airbags and see how long they sit on it. If it sits for a month, I'm going to send them an e-mail, reminding them that they could have sold it to me a month ago.  As far as what I will end up with, the GOOD dealer (McGrath Honda in Elgin, IL) is getting me a blue 5-speed LX without the side airbags. On top of that, they had someone recently buy an EX who didn't like the alloy wheels and opted to replace them with something else (which to me was a bad choice, but it's his car), so they had these brand new EX wheels looking for a home. I believe they are almost $900 if you get them as an option on the LX, but they are letting me have them for $419. My total on the blue LX 5-speed with the EX rims on it is going to be $14,700 (including destination charges). I like the wheels a LOT better than the stock LX covers, so I think it all worked out well. My personal experience with Honda of Lisle should be taken into consideration by anyone thinking of buying from them....after all, they are supposed to be NICE when they are trying to get you to comitt....Lord knows how they treat people after they've taken the plunge already!
|
|
|
Replying to: giantsfan21 (May 03, 2004 2:39 pm) Hope this helps, Warner |
|
|
|
|
Replying to: warner (May 14, 2004 5:56 am) |
|
|
Yes I agree... Invoice on a 2004 Honda Civic Sedan (Manual) $14,531 Looks like you paid $14,281 + $419 for this rims. Was $14,700 your out the door price? Or did you have to tack on the doc fee? Bottom line is before I switched to automatic my girl had it in her mind she wanted manual. The best I could do was $14250. So you did very well. You dipped into $281 of the $400 dealer cash. Not bad at all. I bought a automatic for $14900 plus they threw in free tires for life(identical to the ones on the car at the time of purchase). The best deal I had was 14800. Dealers would not go any lower. They finally said if you can get lower by all means pick it up from the dealer you found the lower price from. So bottom line is they didn't want to dip into holdback whatsoever. Hope you enjoy your ride. Bill
|
|
|
Replying to: bill100 (May 14, 2004 7:14 am) Warner |
|
|
What does anyone think about getting the Honda Care Extended Warranty? Is it worth it? Anyone have any experience with using it? I'm debating whether or not it's worth it, and leaning towards getting the 5 year/ 100,000 mile version. Any comments would be welcome, and thanks! Warner |
|
|
|
| I just bought a 2004 Honda Civic LX Automatic for $15,167 +TTL in Seattle | |
| Service contracts usually do not show the customer a return on their money. The company would bankrupt if they did. I generally do not like service contracts, I'd rather put the $1200 I'd pay for a decent one in savings. If you really want one, however, go with the manufacturer-backed one (in your case, the HondaCare) Be sure to shop around, read the 'warranties' board to get an idea of pricing and others' opinions. | |
|
Okay...it's a done deal now. I picked up the car and signed all the paperwork last night. I got a 2004 Honda Civic LX 5-speed for $14,700 including destination fee and a few options. The cost breaks down like this: Base Civic LX 5-speed $14,281 (incl dest.) Alloy (EX model) wheels $419 Splash Guards $0 Wheel Locks $0 (The options RETAIL for a total of $833, so I paid about half price for them) Invoice on this car with destination fee but not including the options is $14,531 so I think I did well. Other things that I opted for: After I thought about it, I did opt to pay for the 5 year/100,000 mile Hondacare warranty. The dealer was asking around $1,200 for this but I negotiated it down to $870 for the zero deductible plan. Maybe this was a waste, but I consider it a bit of additional insurance past the 3 year/36,000 mile warranty period. I hope that I don't have to use it, frankly - it won't hurt my feelings if nothing breaks. And since I only put $500 down on the car, I also opted for the gap insurance which I negotiated down to $400; spread over 5 years of payments at 2.9% finanace rate, it works out to about $7 a month. God forbid something should happen (the car gets totalled or stolen) in the first couple of years of ownership, I'd hate to be out a car and STILL have to pay the difference between what I owe and what the insurance company gave me for it. They wanted a lot more for this, but I was very reluctant to purchase this, but after he dropped down to $400 for this, I figured that for SURE if I didn't get it at that price, something WOULD happen. Maybe I'm a nervous freak, but at $7 a month I didn't think I'd kick myself for getting it, and it may even lower my insurance rate on the car (have to check with my insurance company on that). So, that's my story. I did get the 2.9% financing for 60 months so even with all that additional junk that I opted for and only $500 down on the car, my payment is right at $300 a month. Warner
|
|
|
|
|
I have to thank bueidgod and jaa37 for recommending Fair Honda. They were unbelievable. After researching and contacting all dealerships in about a 90 mile radius, Fair came in with the lowest price. What they also did, was email the price with a breakdown through OTD. No one else I had spoken to, was willing to do that. So I knew that when I got to the dealership there wasnt going to be any unexpected fees. I was doing this for a friend and we drove up there last night. Although a bit of a trek from the city, it was well worth it. My internet contact had left, but had given me the name of someone who would take care of us. He had all the info. He was organized, professional, had patience when my friend changed her mind about the color of the car. This was truely an excellent experience. Plse read my post under Toyota Camry 4/10, #878, for what I went through the first time I did this, for my mother, in Florida. Thats why this experience was amazing to me. Heres how we ended: Ex sedan auto was $16094, plus NYC tax,new license,and small doc fee. I think we got a very good deal. If I ever need a car, Fair Honda will be the FIRST place I call! Thanks again everybody!! Gerri |
|
You are here:
Forums
Prices Paid: Buying & Leasing Experiences Honda Civic Prices Paid and Buying Experience
New? Join Now!
Forum Tools
Search Forums
Browse by Vehicle
1991 Honda Civic CRX
2008 Honda Civic
1997 Honda Civic del Sol
Browse by Board
Browse by Topic
