This is a photo of a Honda Civic GX, the only production natural gas powered car in America. It also happens to be the current car of my dreams, not that my dreams are filled with cars, mind you.
One day, not too long ago, I happened upon an email from Honda inviting me, Merle Wayne Sneed, to check out the Honda Civic GX by responding to their email. I was assured by Honda that a quote on one would be forthcoming. That turned out to be a lie.
What was forthcoming was more emails and phone calls from eager Honda dealers, who while they had no Honda Civic GX for sale, would surely love to sell me another type of Honda.
One of the salesmen who called did give me the name of a dealership in Phoenix that had the Honda Civic GX for sale. It turned out that they didn't but that dealer gave me the name of another in Phoenix who definitely had the Honda Civic GX. That dealer, it turned out, didn't want to sell the cars, they wanted to lease them for over $600 per month. Leasing provides more profit to the dealer than sales.
I was reminded once more that car dealers are skunks.
Here's more proof. Yesterday while the lovely Mrs. Sneed and I were out, we checked out a local Honda dealer, Chapman Honda. This is one of the local dealers that contacted me by email concerning the Honda Civic GX.
Chapman claimed that they we having a huge Memorial Day sale and that yesterday, while the dealership was closed, they would have every Honda marked with their special low, low price. No salesmen would be present to hassle you.
If I was going to by another Honda and couldn't get the Honda Civic GX, I would opt for the Honda Civic EX, a gasoline-powered vehicle that gets good mileage and has the famous Honda reliability. The Civic Ex has a MSRP of $20,145, with an automatic transmission. I can buy the car for $19,339 through an online broker and the dealer still makes about $1000 on that deal.
What Chapman Honda does, like many dealers do, is they tack on hundreds of dollars in bogus dealer charges to every new vehicle. These are things that the Honda designers and engineers are too inept to build into the car, at least if the local dealers are to be believed.
In this case, Chapman added $900 for something they call a desert protection package and about $700 for a security device. Then they discounted the car back to slightly more than MSRP. Their sweet Memorial Day deal is to get the consumer to pay more than the car is worth according to the manufacturer.
Modern cars don't require special sealants and coatings, especially in dry climates. The chip technology built into modern ignitions make them exceedingly difficult to steal. These add-ons are useless, except to generate extra profit for the dealer.
As I said, car dealers are skunks.
Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky
5 comments:
You've hit on an area that makes me very uncomfortable. Sooner or later I will be forced to buy a new car. I'm currently driving around in a little funk that I hope will last longer than the car I had previously (the little blue funk) 16+ years. (it just rusted out so bad it was like driving a swiss cheese mobile and the driver's side window kept falling into the door... )
I hate buying a new car -- it's the worst shopping/buying experience. gotta keep my current car until it hits that unsafe point.
I don't know ...should I think about a Prius or something like that? What's your prediction, Mr. Sneed?
My dad's car got stolen about a year ago. It was parked in front of the local police station but even that didn't deter the gang from driving it away in the middle of the night. A year later he's still waiting for the insurance to arrive.
I prefer public transport because two Decembers ago I was hit by a bike and I fractured my face.
A $600/month lease, for a gas money-saving hybrid? how stupid do people think people are?
Without a doubt, my most unpleasant consumer experiences have been buying cars.
I've never bought a new car. My friend Steve always buys the inexpensive base model, the one they advertise in the paper as "One at this price." They never seem to be able to find the one at this price when he gets there, but he finds if he says "okay, call me if you get one in at this price," and gets up to leave, the car miraculously appears.
Post a Comment