SerpentVenom

I'm finally employed full time. My new employer is in Palo Alto, which means a 40-mile commute to and from work. Since we only had one car, we had to look into getting a second vehicle.

First we considered getting a used vehicle. However, most of the reliable used cars we found were selling for $9,000 or more. It didn't make much sense to try to finance a used car for nearly new car prices, so we decided to go for a new car. Now we had to decide what kind of car we would try to get.

Since gas isn't cheap these days, we really wanted to get a hybrid. A hybrid also made us feel better about getting a second car. Their fuel economy combined with their lower emissions reduces the ecological footprint of a second car, thus alleviating some guilt about owning two cars.

At first we had our sites set on a Toyota Prius. We already owned a Scion which is a Toyota brand, so we thought we would stay with the "family". But the Toyota dealer wouldn't make any deals on either pricing or financing. That, combined with the fact that we couldn't even test drive it, persuaded us to look elsewhere.

On our way home from the Hilltop Toyota dealer, we happened to notice the El Cerrito Honda dealership. Honda has three different hybrid models, the Insight, the Civic and the Accord. We decided to drop in and look at the Civic.

We took a manual transmission Civic Hybrid for a test drive since it got better highway mileage than the automatic. The Civic Hybrid looks just like the regular Civic. It doesn't have the flashy technology and styling of the Prius. It's also a little less fuel efficient compared to the Prius. But it does come standard with some things that are only optional in the Prius including anti-lock brakes and cruise control. More importantly, Honda was willing to deal.

We got down to business. If you've ever bought a new car, then you know what came next. A little back and fourth (OK, a lot of back and fourth), and we finally came up with a good deal. But then we did the one thing car dealers hate. We walked out without signing. We had dinner reservations and we weren't going to miss it. We told the dealer we would be back the next morning and we drove away.

According to "Confessions of a Car Salesman" (a must read for new car shoppers), the last thing the dealer wants you to do is leave without signing because taking time to think about the deal usually leads to a no-sale. We did take advantage of the time that evening to make sure we were ready to seal the deal, and we decided that we were. We went back the next morning and signed the paperwork (and no, they didn't pull a switch on us, it was the same deal we agreed on the previous night). And just like that, I'm driving home in a brand new Blue Honda Civic Hybrid.

Posted under Close to Home on Friday, April 15th, 2005 at 14:11

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