Our Car Buying Experience at Shearer Honda

There is no doubt about the fact that buying a car, either new or used, is a miserable experience, exacerbated, of course, by the fact that huge sums of money involved and you have to deal with people who are not only focused on getting their hands on that money, but are good at it. It makes us incredibly uncomfortable.

At some point, you have to simply resign yourself to the fact that car dealers are going to get what they want at your expense, and then it becomes a process of minimizing the damage. It is at this point where knowledge becomes your best friend.

There is so much information out there about buying a car, it is overwhelming, but helpful. I never realized that there were actually options, and that you could bargain with sellers, which for the record is not my cup of tea. You really have to be prepared to walk away and lose out on assorted opportunties. Such is how the game is played.

We knew several people who had good experiences buying their cars through email, which was hard for me to imagine, but they said worked out well. We decided to give it a try, and even set up an email account just for that purpose. We then searched dealer websites throughout the area and checked on their stocks. When we found a place with a car we wanted, which boiled down to two or three dealers, we began the email process.

We ended up focusing on Shearer Honda, in Rutland, mainly because they had the car that we wanted at a price that was reasonable. After some discussion, we agreed on a price, and the salesperson, MH, was very congenial and not in any way pushy or aggressive. Again, I had no illusions that we were going to get the best of this deal, I just wanted to come away from it thinking we’d done our homework, checked all of our options, and came away from it with the as good a deal as we could get.

What I really liked about the whole email process is that after some haggling, you agree on a price and it is all said and done. No more bargaining or arguing. You give them a deposit, and the car is yours. Sure, we had to drive a bit to get to Rutland, but our overall car buying experience at Shearer was nice. The salespeople were friendly (they always are), but without the slippery feeling I get from other car dealers. They seem more relaxed, maybe because they weren’t all wearing cheap suits.

They didn’t give us the hard sell on extended warranties or extraneous expenses. We agreed on a price, they didn’t push any extra costs, and they were friendly and helpful. All this after they had already made the sale, which meant being nice didn’t further their financial end to be nice.

Plus, we love our new car. I am no expert in buying cars, used or new (not like my Mentor, who loves the battle and is good at it), and R and I both loathe the process of bargaining and haggling, especially when we know we are going to lose, but I came away from our car buying experience with a favorable impression.

This is a bit of a stretch, but the whole Honda atmosphere struck me as a bit more congenial, maybe because they seem to be selling something that people really want (i.e., Hondas) versus trying to convince people to buy something they want you to want. With that in mind, maybe Honda dealers enjoy their jobs a bit more. I know, crazy and naive of me, but there is no denying that they are selling a good product that has built a name for itself for reliability and is in demand.

Okay, enough of my pontification. Thanks for reading.