Happy Boredom

Being a car buying novice I hear all this talk about holdbacks, invoice, rebates, chargebacks, and a jillion other supposed ways to get a good price on a car. Truly, I don’t know if any of that shit works so I just walked into a dealership just to see how much cars cost. Now I realize that is a mistake. Edmunds has a Prices Paid – Buying & Leasing forum where scores of car buyers share their actual out-the-door (or OTD) prices paid. With this kind of information, how can I lose or overpay? I should have looked at the Honda Fit forum before my trip to the dealership.

This afternoon I spent about 90 minutes at my local Honda dealer — Serramonte Honda in Colma, California scoping out the 2008 Honda Fit. I took a solid test drive including a near accident turning left out of the parking lot. We went around the block and up some hills. I am mildly disappointed in the Fit’s lack of uphill power. However, the price is right and I like the interior space. Knowing all this I go into the dealership thinking I will probably buy this vehicle if not today, this month.

Inside the dealership I realized I hadn’t done enough homework to know how much I should pay. The dealer’s initial proposal was $17,700 out-the-door for base Honda Fit with some of the necessary add-ons like power windows, cruise control, AC, etc. I knew the MSRP sticker of $16,100 I thought car prices are supposed to sell for BELOW the sticker! Am I right? I said $14,500. The manager came over to show me what the dealer paid in invoice of about $14,800 — which matches the Edmunds invoice price — and that they would need to sell for $16,885 just to make out OK on the sale of the car. I said no way, knowing that I was sitting there unprepared on price information.

The Edmunds forum would have confirmed me that a regular Honda Fit can be had for less than $16,885. No remorse for passing on the dealer’s offer.

This is a useful rundown of the types of problems that people have been having with their Mountaineers. Mind you, only the people with bad experiences are posting here but my Mountaineer is starting to have very similar symptoms that match those found in the forums at this link.

I may be looking at about $3,000 to plop in a new transmission. Ohhhhh shit.

2002 Mercury Mountaineer Forum

http://consumerguideauto.howstuffworks.com/2002-to-2005-mercury-mountaineer-6.htm

About 10 hours into Prestige 1 and I’m a little over half way through the ranks of prestige 1. Total time played 2 days, 10 hrs, 33 min overall. Progress has slowed recently because I’ve been sporadically playing and I think the competition is getting better.

The medal above is from a package of CoD 4 medals that downloaded from artistpavel.