Our Story Thus Far II

Part II. The email to Honda

In a flight of optimism, back in early July I had filled out Honda's "on-line quote generator", and asked the five local Honda dealers for a price on a stripped Civic. I learned that using the online quote requestor does nothing except to give their sales weasels your contact information and an excuse to annoy you.

Four of them ignored my request and tried to up-sell me on the standard-issue Civic. The stripper is $16750; the standard LX is $18,625 - but you'd have to special-order even that, as they all come through as $19,425 AT versions. That's fully $2675 more - $2889 with tax.

As in: "Pretty soon, you're talking real money."

Keeler Motors actually quoted me a price on the car I wanted. $16,275 on a $16,575 5-sp 4-door DX.

So I went in to talk to them - and they said that they could ORDER me one for fall delivery, call it three months: but only IF I gave them a $500 deposit. (And I would want to do this, why, exactly?)

So I went home somewhat dissatisfied; and, after a few days, I emailed Honda's VP of North American Sales and asked if HE could find me a Civic DX.
I was stunned when he replied almost immediately, asking for details. He basically told me "we're putting our best men on it. Our best men."

And somewhat to my surprise, twelve days later, he came up with a car: I got a somewhat bemused call from Keeler, that they had a car arrive with MY name on it. Built in Indiana, and re-directed from a Honda dealer in New Hampshire. By bypassing the local dealers, I got the car I wanted.