Surprisingly, it was relatively quick to negotiate this deal, in comparison to other past purchases. We were originally considering the Camry (there was a LH pre-negotiated lease for the Camry SE for $270/month + $2700 DAS that we were strongly considering) or the Hyundai Sonata Hybrid, but after test driving we decided we wanted a smaller car, plus we have a long history with Hondas in our family, hence the additional $1000 Honda loyalty incentive.
The week before I did my homework by checking local inventory levels (there were over 200 Sport Touring Civic Hybrids (40 or so hatchbacks) within a 30 mile radius at one point. I also saw that Honda already had an advertised $269/mo, $4100 DAS lease deal on the Sport (non-touring trim), and one local dealer was advertising $290/mo, $3800DAS on the Sport Touring, so that provided a baseline.
Over the weekend I emailed about 10 local dealers that had one of the color combinations we were considering, letting them know what vehicle we were interested in and that we were looking for competitive bids online before we ever set foot in the dealership. It helped that we were in no rush to get a vehicle, which I clearly spelled out, but I also informed the dealers that we were ready to sign within a day if we got a genuinely good deal.
Half of the dealers sent initial offers (most only after I declined coming in person to the dealer), but most weren’t that good (one sad dealer sent us a ludicrous $483/mo, $3000 down offer), except for the first dealer who responded that offered $326/$3500DAS. I was actually quite impressed with this first dealer due to his no-nonsense, transparently up-front approach, and I was planning on giving this dealer the benefit of final chance to beat any better quotes, but the one issue was that the dealer did not have our preferred color combination in stock.
But then I got a call from another dealer (that I had already exchanged a number of emails and calls with, though they had been cagey on giving any actual numbers) and was given an offer over the phone of $310/$2500 down, and they had the specific color combo we wanted in stock. This was without me giving them any of the quotes I had received from any of the other dealers. I countered with $300/mo and that’s the deal we signed that day.
It does seem that this dealership was working hard to make end of year sales quotas and that certainly helped with the offer we received. The finance guy was quite surprised that the managers had agreed on this pricing. It’s been our experience that the end of the year is often a good time for serious discounts.
