[Insighter]

As someone who just spent $20K on a new CVT Insight, I really need anyone to tell me this just isn't true.

Click below:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=31839&item=2405659760

 

[Resist]

Well it does have 165 miles on it and it is on the east coast. Probably a demo car. They aren't sell very well back there, so at this point it's costing the dealership more money the longer it sits on the lot. Being it's a 2002 I'd say I'm correct.

 

[Allnighte]

:shock: wow not bad!

i guess i'll tell my buying story. (sorry if i hijack the thread)
i had just gotten a job and was looking for a car that only did what i needed it to. drive to work. i knew about hybrids for a while so we went to the local (at the time) dealership, Carlsbad Hoehn Honda. took a test drive, sat down with the guy, did the usual hagling. my dad was with me since he has a credit rating that i don't. i was 18 at the time. we said we'd think about the price after interest (some $24k to be paid off in 60 months)
saw an ad in the paper for only 2 Insight's going for $15,900. called 'em up, asked what the catch was. no catch they said so we headed down there.
sure enough no catch. 2001 CVT silver Insight brand new, ~20 miles. they were doing this so i could be an "advertisement" kinda like how Honda is selling the Insight's for less for the long-term benefit.
0 down, 60 months, after everything all totalled out, $19,858.20, heck of a lot cheaper than Hoehn.
I even got free oil changes for life!
the dealership is Poway Honda near San Diego off the I-15.

so i was pretty lucky, but i guess it isn't too uncommon for dealerships to pull this kind of thing. especially now, post 9/11. i bought it in december of 2001

 

[Resist]

I bought my 2001 CVT on the California Central Coast and they wouldn't give me as sweet of a deal, $20K. The dealerships here love to gouge their residents! But I paid it off in less than a year later and don't give them my businsess for oil changes (do it myself).

I personally hate taking my car into dealerships for service. I only do it for warranty work and even then they manage to scratch or leave bolts and screws loose or missing.

 

[Braxus]

Oil change for life eh? Lucky tard you!

I got my CVT Insight for $16,400 out the door with taxes, docs, fees, etc. at Nelson Honda (S. California) in Sept. 2002. Wanted a 5spd Insight but at that price (14,988), decided that the offset would be worth it. Cheapest I was able to talk a dealer down for a 5spd manual was $17,000. Probably could have gotten it even cheaper if they had one on the lot. Oh well...

 

[nnielsen]

i traded a 1998 ford zx2 in for my car and paid 12295.00 for the car from meyer honda in illinois

 

[glitch]

Well Insighter it appears we got about the same deal in a way sort of. I owed $12,500 on my Durango (It's $32,000 new) and the dealers were only offering $8000 or $9000, and I refused to have negative equity. The Dealer I went to, Coral Springs Auto Mall in Southern Florida, was desperate to make a sale that day so the sales manager asked what he could do. His people only offered like $9500 on my Durango. I said, take $3000 off the cost of the car then, and he did. So what I financed is the $20,000 the car costs. But after taxes, tag, title, etc. etc. I think I financed around $21,000 and some change. Plus I had to put like $1000 down or something since my credit was so so, but enough to get the car by myself which isn't bad considering I'm 21 and my credit isn't that well established yet. I did get a 10.5% interest rate though, considering my mom got a 6.5% interest rate on my Durango (but it was all in her name). My fiancee who has slightly worst credit got screwed in her $8000 car and got like 17% financing which my dealer said is actually normal for first time buyers, so my 10.5% was good for a first time buyer. My next car, maybe 3-4 years down the road, will probably have better interest on it since this car's helping my credit.

The dealer said I got my insight at cost after he took the $3000 off of it and some change. They said they were supposed to sell 15 cars that Friday (usually their 2nd busiest day in the week) and they'd managed to only sell 2 that day. Not sure if it was a gimick or a ploy, but I know I got a good deal kind of. At least I didn't finance any negative equity on top of that. I can't believe they only offered $9,500 on a 2000 Dodge Durango SLT Plus fully loaded, leather, wood-grain, etc. etc. it's insane. They said the fact that it had 55,000 miles on it and the fact that it was a Dodge made it's trade in lower. Honda's are supposed to have high resell values.

 

[Atheos]

I've had a hectic time getting my Insight, but I finally drove it home 8 days ago.
I actually looked at getting one two years ago, but it wasn't really possible due to the fact that I had to have a "family" car at the time.
I recently got a town & country for a sweet deal, so I decided to entertain trading in my Malibu LS for a new insight.

Dealership 1:
I decided to start at the Dealership chain I bought the chevy from. The sales guy was a real prick, and let me know he really wasn't all that interested in locating a car without a 2k down payment! I laughed at him, and explained that I've purchased a car before and I'll be doing so again at a different dealership.

Dealership 2:
No, we won't order or location the Insight you want, but we will be glad to sell our 2002 red insight for 18.5k.
I decided to take the car for a test drive, but the car would not start.
Two technicians and an hour later, they still can't get it to start.
I didn't want the red one anyway, and they made me a pathetic offer on my car.

dealership 3:
We don't sell ANYTHING under MSRP, go away.
heh, well not exactly. They gave me a better offer on my car, and actually spent a few days trying to locate the car I wanted. (03 silver 5 manual, w/ac)
the salesman said we could probably get the deal done for around 21k, including my negative equity which is about where I wanted to be.
After about a week of letting them try to "find my car", I called back to find out the salesman quit.
The manager offered me the blue automatic on his lot, but wouldn't budge off of MSRP!
At this time, I decided to start looking on the internet for my car and I made an inquiry on some website.
About an hour later I receive an e-mail from a salesguy that works at the first dealership I talked to!
I really didn't want to go back to them, but I told him what I was looking for and he seemed eager to help me locate my car.

A freakin MONTH later the guy sends me an e-mail telling me a truck just entered the lot with my car!
I spend the week hagling over the phone, and via e-mail and then I finally stop by the dealership to talk some numbers.
He tries some of the usual dealer tactics
(Here's the payment we can get you into....Can you give me a down payment to show your serious?...Here, drive the car home and we'll work the deal later....and so on...)
After 3 trips I gave them my offer, and got the car.
03 Silver 5speed Insight w/ac: 17,500
negative equity: 4,000
rate: 6%

I drove away in my car before they even got around to removing the plastic.
oh, and driving away from the lot was the first time I had driven an insight, hehe.

Niles

 

[Atheos]

oh, and about the thread, heh.
the e-bay car just had a start at 13,900 with no
bids. the auction was closed or canceled in the same day,
which probably means he got the offer he wanted and
bypassed giving e-bay the commision.
happens all the time
Niles

 

[Resist]

Best times to buy an Insight:

The end of the month

Rainy day at closing time

When their has more than one Insight and it has been there a while


If can do all 3 above on the same day, you can get a killer deal.

 

[benjamin]

Moving this thread to the General Discussion forum, where it would be more appropriate.

 

[gomarlins3]

I missed the auction. I paid full price because we were turning in a 2001 Acura and were upside down. In the long run we save money, but it hurt now!!

 

[BLeFevre]

I love all the interesting stories posted on this forum. Here's my Insight buying story.

The first (and only, within an hour of me) dealership was somewhat disappointing from the start. They know that to find another Honda dealership in the area you really have to drive. The salespeople weren't very interested in helping me and when one finally did, he didn't seem prepared for an insight request :?

Before I even considered the purchase, I did lots of research, I think it took the salesman a minute to even register which car I was talking about. He knew nothing about the car, had none on the lot and asked for $500 to secure my interest when he located one at another dealership.

I told him no way on the $500, especially since I had never test driven an Insight. He then tried to sell me a Civic hybrid, at MSRP no less. Then he checked my credit, then he started to drool (I have excellent credit), he told me he could get me the Insight for invoice if I gave him the $500. I told him I needed to test drive first.

He did manage to get me a test drive (nice owner in for service), around the PARKING LOT, ugh, then he tried to sell me the Civic again. I told him I'd get back to him. I did test drive the Civic hybrid by the way, nice car, just not what I wanted.

I was very disappointed, about to give up and decided to peek at Autobytel just for laughs (I'd never turned up a price I liked there) and there it was, 2000 silver 5sp for $11,500. I couldn't believe it, first thing through my head "It's got 500,000 miles on it."

Turns out it didn't have 500,000 miles, it had 19,000. It also had an extended warranty purchased by the previous owner (a Honda factory worker who had all the service done at his plant's shop). I called the dealership the next day. It was a four hour drive to the dealership but well worth it. The dealer was very friendly and when I got there the car was so detailed it looked new (very, very clean), just begging me to drive it. No sooner had I checked the interior and under the hood the dealer tossed me the keys and told me to take it for a drive, he even recommended a route (country and city driving included) and said to take as long as I needed.

He made that sale easily, and I drove away that day with my Insight. Little does he know I would have given him $2,000 more

 

[Atheos]

BleFevre,

What dealership did you get your car from?
I looked at a used 2000 with 19k miles on it before buying my car just a few
weeks ago. This dealership would have been about 4-5 hours from you too.
It was a silver 5 speed in great condition.
I took my mother there to look at it the other day, and it was apparently
sold.

 

[Thorian]

By the locations and his avatar BLeFevre bought the insight you were looking at , The coincidences are just too funny.

 

[hack123456]

$13,750 new, plus free floormats and shop manuals, minus a 200,000 '93 civic in poor shape. It's a 5spd, leftover 2002. Helps alot if you know they've had it for a long while, and you aren't in a position of needing a new vehicle, just considering one.

 

[bfivelover]

Actually bought mine almost new for $14,900. Got it on EBAY. It was a repo with less than 4000 miles on it, barely broken in. Since I drive 120-130 miles round trip every day, I'd been looking for one for a while, and I didn't want to pay $17000 or $18000, so this was just what I was looking for.

 

[BLeFevre]

Atheos

The dealership was Alan Nott Honda in Lima, Ohio. Hope I didn't buy the car out from under your mom, but if I did rest assured it is in good hands

 

[Will M]

When I bought my first Insight, I noticed that in the trunk, there were these pieces of plastic roughly a foot square in very streamlined shapes. I asked what they were. Nobody knew.

Before the dealership could figure out what they were and why they were in the trunk, I figured out that they were the underside farings meant to go in front of the front tires, covering the underside of the bumper. I installed them while they were still trying to figure out what they were. I carried a miniature toolkit around for times like these...

I'd done the research. I knew more about the car than they did.

Then again, that's usually the case. Back in 1992, when I bought my Honda Civic hatchback, I remember that during the test drive, the salesman told me it had a "60/40" split rear seat. I looked back and saw the 50/50 split rear seat and figured that anything else this clown told me was fiction. That's my general approach to car salesmen. I'd love to be surprised, though it hasn't happened yet.

The woman I bought the Insight from was pleasant and clueless. She had nothing to offer me except to get me the car and get out of my way. I never saw her again. I got several letters from her manager telling me about some new salesman who came in to replace her or the one who replaced her.

Like I care.

The guy I'm buying my new Insight from seems refreshingly honest, helpful and humble. I started the conversation asking him for prices and he got them for me immediately. No haggling. I hate haggling. Likely, I could save some money by haggling, but usually car dealerships make less off the kinds of cars I buy, so they aren't usually all that interested in coming down on prices for a car that has what I want instead of what they have on their lot.

I intend to live with this car for years. I'm still driving the 1992 Civic with 208,000 miles on it, mostly with me behind the wheel. I put 45,000 miles on the first Insight and would still be driving it if a teenager in an SUV hadn't T-boned my wife, and some tool-happy rescue worker hadn't decided to play with his Jaws of Convenience to rip the passenger side apart when they couldn't figure out how to unlock the doors.

I like to drive a car from the dealership to the junk yard with as many miles between these events as possible. Why sell a car I love? Why buy one I don't love?

 

[MMY120]

2001 Insight CVT w/AC and CD Changer 5,000miles for $9500

I work at a car dealership around where I live. We recently bought a Honda Insight at a dealer auction and sold it for $9500 in 30 minutes. This was a Silver 2001 Insight with AC and a CD Changer!!! Don't ask me what the boss was thinking...I don't even know what the cost of the car at auction was...but it had to be lower than $9500!!!