I've been watching Cars.com in search of the elusive white LX.

When searching within 200 miles of my home zip code the number of fits went up and up over the weeks, peaking at about 200. Now that cars are actually being delivered the number has now dropped to 125!

Dealers seem to be carrying cars on their inventory even though they are already sold. This makes Cars.com considerably less useful then it could be.

 

Took them about 10 days to drop mine off the list. I suppose it is how fast the dealer is.

 

Not to mention that it shows a bunch of cars that haven't been delivered yet. The one that we're waiting on has been listed on Cars.com for about 3 or 4 weeks now. They don't even have a specific ETA yet, just that "Honda said we should have it by the end of July". I suspect now that it will probably be more like the middle of August.

 

Probably 95% of the cars showing online- on cars.com, dealer website, or anywhere- are in transit. These things are spending MAYBE a few days on the lots around me. The dealers around here are getting 1-3 2015 Fits at a time, selling almost all of them within 3 days. Most don't even have time to put photos up on their website.

So how I played it is find who is getting the one you want, call, work out a deal, place a refundable deposit, and buy it when it comes in! You can test drive any color Fit you find in the trim level you want in advance to make sure it's the car you want.

 

The supposed inventory is now down to 97 in the 200 mile radius I've been specifying. Few new listings are appearing.

I wonder if the spigot has been turned off again due to the quality issues that the early deliveries have experienced?

 

I think it's more likely that the deliveries have slowed in general, and cars are now being picked up as fast as they arrive-- so the inventory is stagnant or declining.

Honda stacks the inventory so that as soon as a car is allocated it shows up in inventory. The entire allocation was showing in inventory, which stacked up as deliveries were delayed, but now it has dwindled as the cars have arrived and been delivered. The last portions and now the going forward allocations are much smaller, and are being delivered almost as soon as they arrive.

This is why many dealerships show 12+ fits in stock, but in reality have zero to sell.

There's 718 2015 fits across all trim levels showing within 200 miles of me.

 

Wow, you must be in a more densely-populated area than SoCal! Most dealers close to me have 1 or 2 cars listed, but not actually in stock.

The thing I've noted is that the rate of new listings has dropped considerably. This is likely more a reduction to a normal rate after a glut of listing following the pre-call.

 

I had my doubts at first but I have given in. I'm seeing exactly what you have been seeing. Some dealerships are showing more in stock than they did but actual Fits arriving have been dwindled down to nothing. Very few, if any are coming in.

I haven't seen a new LX CVT near me in 3-4 weeks.

 

I think it's a factor of my positioning. Both Boston and NYC are a little more than 100 miles away. If I open up to 200 miles I also get the dense areas of NJ and all the NYC suburbs-- a lot of dealerships.

I would bet if I cut it back to 100 or even 75 miles that number would be more like the 100 other people are seeing.

 

Yes. My 200 mile radus includes all of LA, the Inland Empire, Orange County, and San Diego. It also includes most of the Central Valley and Central Coast, but not the Bay Area or Las Vegas.

 

The "inventory" continues to drop, now down to 78 in my 200 mile radius.

More disturbing is that no white cars have appeared in the last couple of weeks. Makes me think that they might have exhausted the white cars that they had sitting in Mexico waiting to be reworked.

Might be a long wait for white...

 

Wow, the number suddenly jumped to 148, almost doubling in two days!

There also appears to be a healthy number of LXs in the mix, up to 28 from single digits. Even a couple of white ones!

Hopefully these cars will actually start appearing soon!

 

Sounds like good news. Even better if you start seeing them.

 

For me in Hawaii, Cars.com isn't too helpful. It lists over 200 Fits on Oahu, but I know that's not "in-stock" inventory, just stuff that is in transit or otherwise on order.

With Iselle just about ready to make landfall on the Big Island and Julio not far behind, I won't be able to do anything related to car buying this weekend. I'm actually hoping the dealer hasn't accepted any deliveries yet to keep the cars (and customers!) safe.

 

The number went up another 28, to 175. Perhaps Honda just released another batch of serial numbers and the dealers are just entering them en masse.

49 of them are LXs, so that number is improving too. No luck on white ones, though. Only two.

 

My advice is never to go by Cars.com when it comes to inventory. As a salesperson, I have seen many errors with this site when it comes to my previous dealership's inventory. It's just all over the place.

 

Today's numbers are still going up. 192 total, 50 LXs, 3 of them white.

Interesting that a nearby dealer with a good reputation had four LXs pop up one day and disappear the next. Perhaps they are actually paying attention to keeping the data accurate rather than leaving sold cars up to troll for customers.