Fladeboe Honda in Irvine, CA - good internet purchase experience
#1
04-07-2010, 02:32 PM
Fladeboe Honda in Irvine, CA - good internet purchase experience
I just purchased an orange Fit Sport automatic (non-navi) from Fladeboe Honda in Irvine, CA; overall it was a great purchase experience.
I used cars.com to search dealer inventory, and ended up sending e-mail quote requests to about 10 different SoCal dealers. I got quotes from about five of them, and when I called to follow up and confirm the price most of them suddenly discovered that some accessories had "already been installed" and would have to be added to the price (usually to the tune of $200 to $1,000 for paint protection, wheel locks, etc.). The worst of these was Riverside Honda, whose internet person quoted me a great price, only to reveal on being pushed that they would be adding on $1,000 for their "standard protection package" (paint and upholstery protection) which had already been installed on the car.
I worked with John Hum at Fladeboe, and the price he quoted me over e-mail was the actual price I ended up paying. Purchasing the car took about two hours (I had set up an appointment), but was almost completely painless. The only items they tried to add on were their upgraded alarm system and the extended warranty, and in both cases they clearly showed the OTD prices both with and without the items. John seemed to not care whether we bought them or not, and as soon as we said that we weren't interested in them he deleted them from the quote without hassle; even the finance manager only mentioned them briefly (and didn't try to push them).
The only annoyance was that while we'd been able to briefly look at the car before we worked on the paperwork, they didn't seem to want to let us inspect the car closely for damage before we signed the purchase contract. We had to directly tell the finance manager that we weren't going to sign the contract until we'd inspected the car, and then had to be taken to the back lot where the car was being prepped. We ended up finding a scratch on the rear bumper, which they then created a "service authorization" for; we haven't gone back to have the scratch worked on yet.
I used cars.com to search dealer inventory, and ended up sending e-mail quote requests to about 10 different SoCal dealers. I got quotes from about five of them, and when I called to follow up and confirm the price most of them suddenly discovered that some accessories had "already been installed" and would have to be added to the price (usually to the tune of $200 to $1,000 for paint protection, wheel locks, etc.). The worst of these was Riverside Honda, whose internet person quoted me a great price, only to reveal on being pushed that they would be adding on $1,000 for their "standard protection package" (paint and upholstery protection) which had already been installed on the car.
I worked with John Hum at Fladeboe, and the price he quoted me over e-mail was the actual price I ended up paying. Purchasing the car took about two hours (I had set up an appointment), but was almost completely painless. The only items they tried to add on were their upgraded alarm system and the extended warranty, and in both cases they clearly showed the OTD prices both with and without the items. John seemed to not care whether we bought them or not, and as soon as we said that we weren't interested in them he deleted them from the quote without hassle; even the finance manager only mentioned them briefly (and didn't try to push them).
The only annoyance was that while we'd been able to briefly look at the car before we worked on the paperwork, they didn't seem to want to let us inspect the car closely for damage before we signed the purchase contract. We had to directly tell the finance manager that we weren't going to sign the contract until we'd inspected the car, and then had to be taken to the back lot where the car was being prepped. We ended up finding a scratch on the rear bumper, which they then created a "service authorization" for; we haven't gone back to have the scratch worked on yet.
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