My girlfriend is looking for her first car to purchase and she knows next to 0 about the car buying process so I’ve tasked myself with finding her one. All I know is that she wants a Honda Civic Sport. I’ve gone through just about every dealer in my area and nobody has any on the lot and they all want ridiculous markups on anything in transit.
I am more of an upmarket buyer myself ($80k+) so I’m not really familiar with the market at the Honda class / price point and have never crossed shopped anything like it. Any suggestions on a similar car in the sub 25k range that is reasonably available on dealer lots and not commanding absurd markups? She’s set on the Civic but I’m hoping to convince her to look in another direction but I don’t really know whats out there.
Corolla Hatchback SE is similar.
Honda’s still command a premium so I hope you GF has lots of spare cash. Also I (or we) recommend to NOT cosign with her, she needs to stand on her own credit.
Got it thank you. I’ll take a look at at Corollas.
And you are not kidding about the Hondas. I just bought a 80k hellcat charger for 6% off and these clowns are asking for $7,500 above on a Civic. I was floored. I also would not touch co-signing with a 50 foot pole lol
Please remember this when she is withholding ‘services’ to get you to cosign, there’s a NEW epic thread here about a guy who cosigned for an ‘acquaintance’ and now has to deal with a guy who’s not paying for a Range Rover. And there are several threads in the past about co-signing nightmares.
I have a civic sport hatch touring that landed today. Dealer is around the metro NY area but delivers for free if you’re within 250 miles. Is $31k msrp for sticker tho. Better than paying markup is getting something for your money.
My wife’s cousin (M) got engaged to a girl. They were living together in (I believe) Louisiana. They shared a rented apartment together. They both needed new cars at some point. He signed for his car with her as a co-signer (he had the income and credit, she was in the process of rebuilding her credit). Then she needed a new car, so she signed the lease and he co-signed. They had a wedding date set. He went to work one morning, came home and she was GONE! Turns out she met some dude playing games online and moved to California. She refused to pay for the car and he was on the hook for it. Paid for the car, registration, & insurance for over 2 years. In the end, he was just happy that she turned the car in on the due date.
Turns out it was a blessing in disguise. He paid $X and hasn’t seen or heard from her since she turned in the lease. He’s happily married (to a different woman) with a beautiful little daughter.
He paid the lease out because he had finally fixed his credit after a number of years and didn’t want it ruined again.
I’ve seen almost this exact same situation play out 3 times.
Every single time the daily resentment of getting into a car you hate and double the resentment for being mansplained/womansplained into the situation led to the ‘splainer getting dumped.
