I know that my decision of buying a car happened 3 weeks ago. But with my HK relatives coming, I had to take the advantage of doing it while they are here. And while they are here, might as well get it earlier so we have a car to go outside the city.
I brought up the proposal of buying a car the next day after they arrived. They agreed that it’s the right time – because I’ve saved some money, I’m more matured, and “everyone needs a car in
So my 1st choice of car is a Honda hybrid Insight 2010. It’s compact, futuristic looking, got nice colors, cheap, and it saves gas and the environment. But they immediately think that hybrids are not powerful enough to fit 4 people and some heavy things in the car. They immediately think of it as a family car, that I bought it for family usage primarily. It’s totally not what I had in mind – it’s a personal car that I use it for grocery shopping, for fitting me and my aunt in the car (that’s why I’m paying for it!).
So I was disappointed or upset for a day that I have to look all over again. And then my aunt upset me further by telling me Honda is good, just pick cars from Honda. We went to Herb Chambers the next day to look at Hondas and they liked the CR-V – because of the trunk size. The car was bigger than I thought I would drive. I started to freak out, and wished that I had bought the 2nd hand car from Tiff instead, for $14,000. From the whole showroom I didn’t see anything that I would have died for. But my family’s preference influenced me, and I turned to the Accord because that’s the next best thing there. They are both in the 25k’s. And I figure that I might as well add in the navigation if I want the CR-V because there’s a camera in the back so that put me more at ease with backing up in a bigger car.
I had to immediately transfer at least 20k to my account because my family suggested that they lend me money to save on interests. But I didn’t want to owe them anything so I said no, if I had to pay in full, I would use my money. My original budget of 23k from the hybrid is turning into $28 K CR-V – all thanks to my family.
We went home and my grandfather told my HK aunt and uncle that he had put $6000 in my bank acct as in a “safe deposit” in case something comes up. Now he said he wants to use that $6000 towards my car. Great. Now they feel that they have a part in my soon to be obsession. Can I reject that offer? Not really….what can I say? That I don’t want your contribution of $6000? but it’s already in my account...
So during the next 2 days I had been gathering all the info from Jason on the process of buying cars and reading up on negotiating. He told me to start off by calling dealerships or getting internet quotes. I searched for the nearest 5 Honda dealerships and started to gather quotes from them. And I slowly recognized the patterns of how they try to get information from you and use it to their advantage. I learned what to say and what not to say to them to make them “less tricky”. Like if you tell them you are paying in full, they will give you a higher quote thinking you have money. No matter how you bargain later, you would just bargain from that quote down. If you tell them that you have visited other dealers, they might ask you for your lowest quote and try to match that. I told them my lowest quote was from Boch (known to be the lowest in the industry), they immediately said “why didn’t you buy it from them?” One dealer even told me that they cannot match the quote from Boch.
Things I did in the last 2 days (Monday and Tuesday):
- found dealerships and called them to get quotes
- get insurance quotes from Metlife and Liberty Mutual
- asked questions about the process of getting the car in the dealership
- searched for car buying tips www.carbuyingtips.com
- looked up and learn different kind of fees that the dealership may add in that you don’t have to pay
- trying to think of ways to bargain with the dealer, and knowing what or what not to say
- transferring money from banks and making sure I have enough to pay in full
Things that I need to do this week:
- bought car insurance – got payments of $94 per month
- need to go to Liberty Mutual to pick up the Proof of Insurance
- Bring proof of insurance to the dealership on Friday
- Pick up the car at 4pm on Friday
- Receive license plate and inspection sticker
- Inspect the car myself
- Make sure what parts are not covered by my extended warranty
- Apply for a Resident parking permit
So I still haven’t entail the whole negotiating process yet. We decided to go to Herb Chambers on Tuesday because it’s the end of the month and Honda has a $500 rebate before 9/30. We already knew what Boch quoted us, $26,600 on top of the $500 rebate. So if we want to save us a trip to
On a side note, the sales lady asked me all kinds of questions like what I want on the car. Then asked me how I’m going to pay for it. I really didn’t want to tell them I’m paying in full, because I knew there’s a disadvantage. Telling them I’m paying in full means I have money. So I said that’s irrelevant and she’s like of course that’s relevant, we need to know later. So I told them I’m not sure, so in the end I told her I’m paying in full.
So there, they saw our weakness. When the manager said no, we raised the question that Boch can save us even more money and we’re going there instead because they have the rebate. My uncle asked the sales woman to show the manager our number of $26,500 again and this time the manager said yes. We all felt very good about the bargain because it is below the Boch quote. But now that I think about it, they did that to make us think that we bargained really well. All these people are tricky! But I guess in the end we only got around $3,300 off the MSRP price. I can’t say we got ripped off but I’m sure we could have gotten a better price going to Boch. I tried to get them to throw in the floor mats. But I asked after we agreed on the price so of course they won’t give it to me anymore. Damn!
On picking the car color. I picked a light blue color that I like, and she came back saying that the blue one has 250 miles on it, because they were driving it from the CT dealership to swap cars. I was actually fine with it but my family wanted BRAND NEW car so we had to go with the next preferable color – Tango Red. They didn’t have a tango red in the dealership but I saw one this morning, it’s actually a very very nice color. I was disappointed with the light blue yesterday but now I am satisfied with the color.
