When the time came to actually shopping around for a car, we were still in the easy phase, meaning that we could browse adds and dealer listings without actually having to deal with a salesperson. I do not have a ton of experience interacting with car dealers, but have found that the few times I have been brutal. Something about the car salesman has, at least up to this point in my life, left me coming away with a bad taste in my mouth. It reminds me a bit of talking to my brother, I always feel like he’s trying to sell me something I don’t want, and is telling me superfluous information designed to somehow confuse me. There is a definite lack of trust.
Obviously all salespeople are not bad, it’s just that in my limited experience, I feel like I’ve been backed into a corner and have no choice but to relent. I had similar feelings when we bought a house, even though we had my Mentor in our corner.
Anyway, a couple of our friends had bought cars through email, and said it wasn’t that painful and was even fairly pleasant. I wasn’t clear on how you buy a car via email, it just seemed like dealers count on seeing you face-to-face, on their turf, so they can play their little games and manipulate you. They always seem to do that, “I’ll have to check with my manager,” routine, which bugs the heck out of me.
The first issue was deciding which car. Again, it boiled down to the Fit or the Yaris. My first thought was to go with the Yaris, because on the surface, it seemed cheaper, there were more of them on the road, and they seemed cheaper. My friend GS had one and he liked it a lot.
On the other hand, a few of your friends had Fits, including JH and his magic bag of tools, which for us was a ringing endorsement because we trust his opinion. Also, he let me take it for a spin it, so I got the stress free test drive, though I managed to be anxious about damaging his car. JH, like us, was sought out a manual transmission, as well.
We had another option which seemed like a good one until we actually gave it a go, and that was getting a used car at auction. Our mechanic at Meunier towing is a great guy who we trust. We’ve always had good experiences with him, and he regularly went to the car auction and had obtained cars for several people we knew. They all encouraged us to follow suit, and raved about the good deals they got.
I spoke with RM and he was very helpful and encouraging, but pointed out that there are not many Fits at the auctions. There were tons of Civics and Accords, which were more expensive, and several Yaris’ as well, but Fits somehow never came through the pipes. At one point we were ready to go wit the Yaris, but decided to wait and see.
I have to confess, part of the appeal of going through the auction was that we wouldn’t have to deal with salespeople, which for a spineless wimp like me is akin to pulling teeth. I loathe the interaction so much that I would rather have bought a car through auction and had RM do the dirty work. Plus, he’s experienced and knows what to look for. I had similar feelings with buying our house, I was really hoping my Mentor would simply act like the buyer and just buy the thing for us, but sometimes you just have to confront these issues by yourself.
After scouring the adds and checking dealer inventories, we came to the conclusion that the Yaris was actually no cheaper than the Fit. They list it at a certain price, but you can never find that base model, and after all the additional charges (those sneaky manufacturers), they came out the same. Also, we scoured the adds and website, and no dealers had any new Yaris’ in a 4-door hatchback with a manual transmission. People just don’t buy manuals.
We ran into the same problem with the auction. More automatics came through, and not that many Fits, and the ones that did had their own set of issues. These are used cars, after all, and you never really know what you’re getting until after you’ve gotten it.
After months of sitting around and waiting, we finally decided we were going to get a Fit, and a new one at that. Bear in mind that we were buying the cheapest model that Honda, or for that matter all the other manufacturers, made, and it still seemed like a fair amount of money. Even in light of this, these cars are not that in demand, people don’t seem to gravitate to the cheaper models, they want more power, luxury, and bells and whistles.
Now that our search had been simplified (relatively speaking), we could begin the process of actually contacting dealers and seeing what they had to offer. The timing was good because the 2010 models were being phased out for the 2011s, so they tend to give good deals to unload inventory, though again, good is a relative term, and they always seem to get you with some form of sophistry - I love that word.
The beauty of interacting via email is that you don’t have to actually speak with the salespeople, and can be in control of the interaction, sort of. Unlike buying this house, we were prepared to walk away if we had to. We set up an email account just for this purpose, and set about emailing the dealers throughout Vermont and New Hampshire. We also got some helpful advice from other, more experienced people, and JH even armed us with Consumer Reports information that had saved him money when he bought his car.
The initial response was positive, people were generally friendly and congenial, which makes sense when you realize that they wanted our money (I’m so cynical). The beauty of email was that we didn’t feel any pressure of being put on the spot, and if things got uncomfortable, we could simply press delete. Plus, telling people “no” is much easier through email rather than in person or on the phone.
It really boiled down to price. Who was going to give us the best deal, and we were not going to even step foot in a showroom until we had a quote on a price for a car “out the door.” Wow, empowerment is a beautiful things, or rather, the illusion of empowerment, which is kind of the same thing. We had no misconceptions of winning this battle, we knew the dealers were going to get what they wanted, and they weren’t going to lose money. We, the lowly consumer, just wanted to walk away from it feeling that we had done our research and found the best deal we could find, at least in this state.
It was after about a month of emailing and research that we finally found a dealer that we found to our liking, Shearer Honda. They had the car we wanted in stock, in a color that we liked, and the price, relatively speaking, was agreeable. Plus, the salesperson, MH, was friendly and thoughtful, which helped a lot.
Now this is just a naive assessment because I don’t have a lot of experience buying new cars, but it seemed to me that there is something agreeable about Honda dealers. Maybe they know they have a good product that people want to buy and sells itself, rather than trying to get people to buy something they do not want, and take some level of pride in their work. I can’t say for sure, but my experiences with Honda have been good, and my friend, GS, says the same for Honda dealers he’s worked with.
Whatever be the case, we were now entering the final stage of our purchase, with minor haggles over price, but the overall deal pretty much done. We were also entering, however, the least comfortable part, which was stepping foot into the showroom and having to deal with the gauntlet of salespeople wanting to sell us 10 year paint warranties. It also meant that we were going to have to close the deal and pay for the car, which is never an easy thing to do. Parting is such sweet sorrow, but that is a story for another time.
Until then, thanks for reading.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment