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| Tuesday, August 04, 2009 |
| The new car in my driveway |
 Judging by the comments in my last post, some of you out there are curious about my new car purchase. Honestly, I did not mean to tease. I have been busy today and frankly it took me a lot of digging in my files to find the numbers for my previous car purchase for the last post!
As some of you guessed, I did end up purchasing a new car and yes, I went for the 2009 Honda Fit Sport (Milano Red) (27/33 MPG). I did look at used cars, starting with used hybrids (not a lot of those out there) and at used non-hybrids. But here is the thing - a car that has low mileage and is only a couple of years old was not much of a bargain. At least I did not see any. Granted, I did not take the time to do extensive private party used car shopping. Just looking at cars in dealer lots seemed to be taking most of my weekends.
Now I should disclose that I am not much of a car Gal. To me a car is something that reliably gets me from point A to B. If it can do that in an economic and comfortable way all the better. The Honda Fit met those goals plus I liked how it can accommodate different kinds/sizes of cargo. Loading and unloading items from a hatch back is just easier than lifting things in and out of a trunk. Another major requirement for me as a city dweller is size. I have a small driveway and navigating around and parking on city streets is just easier with a smaller car.
I did test drive and consider the following sub-compact cars:
Suzuki SX4 Crossover
Toyota Yaris
Nissan Versa
I liked that the Honda Fit Sport had 16" wheels (Yaris and Versa had 15") and the feel of the Fit during the test drive was better, in my opinion. I liked the SX4 crossover and gave the one with touring package serious consideration since it has all wheel drive (important feature in New England winters). But I did not like how far I would have to travel to get to a Suzuki dealership and I was not convinced that 7 or 8 years into ownership that the Suzuki would hold up as well as the Honda.
So, how much did I spend for my 2009 Honda Fit Sport? The sticker price was $17,780 plus I added two options. A center console armrest (ridiculous that this is not standard!) and all season floor mats. This brought the price up to $18,364.00. At this point, I have to confess that I hate the whole car buying process. Negotiating a price is not my strong suit. Plus I hate all of the back and forth games where the salesperson has to keep going to the manager to get every lowered price point approved. But, I don't hate this process enough to just pay full sticker!
After much back and forth, I finally got the price lowered to $17,364.00 - but for some reason they just kept upping my Jetta trade-in value on the invoice instead of lowering the vehicle price. I am not sure if this was done for commission reasons, or what. The trade-in process was interesting. They just walked around my 2000 VW Jetta, checked the mileage (it had about 75,000) and sat in it and started it up. Now, when they started it they saw the check engine light. Initially they offered me $2,500 as the trade-in value. That was in line with what I found on Edmunds and Kelly Blue Book. But I also knew all of the issues my Jetta was having (broken cruise control, mysterious oil burns at high rates of speed, transmission problems, etc) but they never asked me about them and I did not volunteer the info.
On the final invoice they gave me a trade-in allowance of $3,500. I waited until I was sitting in the finance office to tell them that I was paying for the car with cash. They did seem disappointed that I was not going to finance it.
Since I purchased my new car before the Massachusetts sales tax increase (from 5% to 6.25%) I saved myself about $190.00. I am now looking into purchasing a GPS system for about that price (or less). I was almost seduced into getting a Fit Sport with Navigation built-in, but it would have added thousands of dollars to the price. I could not see spending that much just for the convenience of having the system built-in. Along with the GPS system, I am also shopping for a high capacity USB thumb drive. My new Honda Fit has a USB port built into one of the glove boxes. My 10GB iPod is starting to die on me. Now, instead of getting a new one, I am planning on just loading my music on the thumb drive and using that.
- New Car - paying cash over financing
- Car Dealer Craziness this week |
| posted by Boston Gal @ 8:56 PM *
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| 17 Comments: |
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I win!!
Enjoy the new car - everyone needs to have some luxuries. I got the built-in NAV, but skipped the bluetooth on my new car.
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I test drove it and ir's an excellent car, with one exception. The gas tank is too small. You will find yourself stopping for gas a lor with a 10.6 gallon tank. However, it handles well, has much better pick-up than the Yaris and a more solid feel and appearance.
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It's super cute, BG. I love my honda, I am on my second one and doubt I will ever again buy anything else. I think you made a very solid decision.
Enjoy your new car!
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I got it right too LOL I got the first batch of Fit when it landed on the US shore in April 2006 five years late. Having driven it for 3 years now, I'll say it's the best car I've ever driven. I do mostly city driving and it's perfect for that. I have transported stuff that no one thought could "fit" with the back seats folded down. I've gone on road trips where the car really shines on the freeway while giving me 42 mpg if I drive 70+ mph and 48 mph if I drive around 60 mph. So, here's a fellow Fit owner wishing you to have lots of fun in your new car. (BTW, I bought a Garmin nuvi 255W for roadtrips -- the builtin nav unit isn't worth the money).
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Sounds like you got a great deal. I hate car shopping in a big way. I fully plan to drive m Chevy Trailblazer into the ground. Gas mileage isn't good but it's almost paid off and I love the damn thing.
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Enjoy your new car. Seems like a good bargain. I love the color!
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The Fit's a great little car -- it was my #2 choice when I gave up on my old Jetta and went shopping for a car last year (I ended up buying a Hyundai Accent). And the main reason it was #2 was that I had a really hard time finding a Fit to test-drive!
Re: new cars: When I was making that comparison, I used the ratio of expected driveable miles left on the car (basically 200K minus whatever the car already had, since I was only looking at models with high reliability ratings) to the cost of the car. With that metric, I found that the lower-mileage used cars, at least in the models I was looking at, were actually *more* expensive on a driveable-miles-per-dollar basis. Moreover, that metric didn't take into account the fact that cars require less maintenance expenditure for the first 30K miles. (I checked when I bought it -- my new car Bluebooked for more as a used car with 10K miles than I paid for it new! So much for losing half the cost of the car when I drove it off the lot.)
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I suspected the Fit. It's adorable! My Honda Civic will be 10 years old next February, and like a previous poster, I'm not sure I'll ever buy anything else again. I've had NO problems with it that were its "fault" (had to replace some wiring that mice chewed up, had to replace some muffler parts due to street salt, etc.). Hondas rock.
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Yay for cool red cars! Especially hatchbacks - I've LOVED having them, and only realized how cool they were when I had a saturn for a few years. The back seats folded down, so you got a bit more maneuverability, but it's not the same.
Have fun with setting up all of the 'extras'!
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A good friend has the Fit and loves it. Enjoy the new car!
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The only problem w/ Hondas (and Toyotas) is that they never have good financing deals. When I was last in the market for a car (2002), I remember some of the American car companies offering 0% financing deals.
Your new car is adorable
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Kady: What does financing matter if you are paying cash?
BG: Congrats on your new Honda! I have a 2002 Honda Civic that I bought new and I still use as my daily driver. I recently purchased a 2009 Honda Odyssey Touring at a great (for me) price for long drives. I enjoy it immensely, especially when I get to sit in the back watching DVDs and my baby while my husband drives us to visit his family who live a couple hours away. We found that our compact cars could not fit all the things a small baby needs for overnight stays and were not that comfy anyways.
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LOVE LOVE LOVE our Fit. The mileage is so great... My only problem is that the factory rims are highly sought after by thieves. We had our rims stolen 1x and broken into looking for the rim key another time both in the same month (both times in upper-income towns on the northshore both times parked in highly visible places). Good luck! If we knew that we would have bought a toyota or a mazda instead. It was a real PITA.
BTW we drive to Canada and maine a lot and no complaints about the gas tank being too small. We averaged 36 miles to the gallon on our last trip.
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A few things. You might have driven a harder bargin by knowing the invoice price. I bought a Honda Pilot in April with a sticker of >$36K, a dealer invoice of $32K and a final sale price of $30,500. The dealers get $ from Honda to offset that cost.
Second, you could have likely gotten a better price by saying "I will finance through you". Then, the dealer makes $$ on the finance, and you can just pay it off in the first month, and avoid the interest (just make sure early termination fees don't apply, which they rarely do in auto loans).
finally, they likely upped the trade in value, which saved you on sales tax. At least in NJ, if you buy a car for say a final negotiated price of $20k, and trade in a car worth $6k, you only pay tax on $14K...
Anyway, I'm surprised you didn't ask your readership for their best tips on car negotiation. You can teach here, but also learn from our collective knowledge...
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I also like the Honda fit a lot becus it is practical with its Hatchback design.
Still, it is a shame that the car makers, Honda included, have very much been treading water during the past decade when it comes to fuel efficiency, and this is the sole reason i would not get a Honda Fit.
You say your 2009 Honda Fit Sport (Milano Red) gets 27/33 MPG.
My 1999 Honda Civic HX is EPA-rated for 29/35. (I actually average 38 mpg.) So my 10-year-old car beats your $18K new Fit. I don't mean to brag, but it's the lax attitude of car makers not to be addressing fuel efficiency standards when everyone knows oil is a highly price-volatile commodity and peak oil (when the world's supply of oil begins to fall), if we haven't already reached it, will be here very soon.
It is a beautiful car, price not withstanding.
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I'm a little surprised at how much you ended up paying! I got my Nissan Sentra (which is rated 24/30 but gets about 35) for $14,000 (for the package with bluetooth, etc). Did you not bargain much?
I ended up playing 3 dealers off of each other for two weeks to get that price. It's another thing to consider when buying a car -- you need to drive a hard bargain to really get a good price for your car.
Enjoy your new ride! The Fit is very cute.
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Hello Boston Gal -
I just have to comment on your new car purchase. Back a few years ago when I had to buy a car, I bought a 'how to bargain/buy a car for the lowest price' package thing. It costed like $50 but it ended up saving me prob $5000 from my 2 car purchases I had to make (an ice on highway accident totaled my first car, sad). Both cars I purchased at invoice price, no ifs, ands, or buts. Please do yourself a favor and never pay sticker price for a car again! :) Enjoy the nice ride!
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I win!!
Enjoy the new car - everyone needs to have some luxuries. I got the built-in NAV, but skipped the bluetooth on my new car.