I recently bought a 2006 Honda Accord LX and I love it. It’s a great car; 244 hp, 26.1 mpg, climate control. The Accord is a lot of car for the money. I consider myself a car guy and I hated car shopping. I thought the process would be fun; test driving cars, searching for accessories, finding the perfect car. It was hell. I detested dealing with deceitful salesmen. It’s like they force you to play their game; bargaining back and forth until one of you gives in. Also, the closest Honda dealership to me was horrible. I ended up having to drive an extra 45 minutes to visit another dealership. The first salesman tried to rip me off by inflating the prices of accessories, so I refused to give them my business.
When I went to the first dealership and I should have known right away that it wasn’t a kosher operation. As I walked into the building, I overheard a girl and her mother arguing with a salesman about the car they recently purchased. I don’t know exactly what happened, but from what I heard, the girl bought a certified pre-owned Civic and when she tried to insure it, the insurance company told her that the car had been in an accident; a fact that the dealership failed to mention.
Before I could catch the rest of the conversation, a salesman approached me and directed me to his desk, conveniently located across the showroom. As we sat down, he started bombarding me with questions and before I know it, I was sitting in an Accord, cruising down the highway. It drove great, better than the Toyota Camry and Nissan Sentra. His tactic worked. He got me in the car and I fell in love with it. I knew I wanted it, so I should just buy it, right? Wrong. He wouldn’t tell me how much the car was. First we had to talk about different models, what options I wanted, and which colors they could get. After I expressed my heart’s desires, he went to “talk" to his manager. What? Why wasn’t I just dealing with the manager then? Anyway, he first came back with a ridiculously high price. “I’m sorry, that’s way out of my price range," I said and started to get up to leave, but he wouldn’t let me. He kept asking me how much I wanted to spend. But when I told him, he would say, “Let me see what I can do," and never matched what I wanted to spend. It turned out that every option I wanted would be cleverly embedded into a few extra dollars in my monthly payment, which would then turn into hundreds of dollars over time. I eventually got fed up with their sale’s approach, stood up and left; with them chasing after me. The following weekend I went to another dealership and found a much better experience. They asked if I wanted help, but left me alone when I told them I just wanted to walk around. They then sat down and showed me my options and the exact breakdown of every option I wanted. They were honest and that is why they got my business.
