I am interested in buying & owning a 2015 FIT LX Manual. I will pay all myself with a cashier's check. No trade in. The current deals are not financially beneficial to me (low leasing prices; low interest rate loans; no payments through July). I am looking for about $500 - $1000 incentive, on top of what I can negotiate off sticker price.

Do I have to wait until the 2016 models arrive in the Fall to get cash incentives on 2015 FITs? Or does Honda sometimes have spring/summer cash incentives?

 

I highly doubt you are going to see any incentives at all, they are selling well without them.

 

you won't. they haven't with any other year. its their cheapest model and it sells like crazy already.

 

Honda doesn't typically do significant cash incentives. They usually do financing offers as you have seen. If they do any, it is usually after the '16s come out to clear out the '15s and if sales continue as they have been, there won't be many '15's left to clear out.

 

Are Honda the same the world over with the no negotiation stance? Here the sticker price is the price. They say it provides security of knowing how much your car is worth. But for me it's just a reason never to buy Honda new.

 

Honda's idea of an incentive is to build really good cars. It's much better than saying "We know it's crap, but what if we knock $500 off?"

 

I hope you're not saying that Toyota make crap cars... :P

 

Fine automobiles. But if they're throwing rebates and other incentives around, they're admitting that their products aren't a good choice at their price point. Every store has flexibility in pricing; they have to do something to move that less popular color and whatnot, but factory incentives are a bad idea.

 

Don't know about over there, but in our area at least, they will negotiate some.

Lately with Fits, due to the demand, they may not be as flexible on price. For a while, they couldn't keep any in stock. They were taking deposits and when one came in, they called the first person on the list to see if they wanted it and if not, went to the second and so on. They wouldn't even talk about an discounts. Now, they typically have 4 or 5 on the lot and appear to be more flexible.

 

The first thing that struck me is why would one want to pay cash for a rapidly depreciating asset like a new car?

 

Can you explain how getting a loan on car will save money compared to paying cash? I know sometimes they may have 0% interest, but they make up for that somewhere in the contract.

Keeping cash in a interest bearing account will probably pay about 25 cents per month or less on a $15k balance.


Clifton

 

Honda here have a very strict no-negotiation policy. Everyone pays the same price. No options are free. Every other brand dealer - Holden, Toyota, Ford, Kia - will negotiate. But they're also usually franchises, and Honda don't franchise their operations here so their dealers don't compete against each other like the others do.

Our market is very different, because you can import nearly-new cars from Japan very cheap. The JDM models are usually specced up from the NZDM models too. So all dealers are competing in that market. Honda, however, won't negotiate. They value-add with branding, I guess.

Having said I wouldn't pay new, both my UKDM Civic Type R and my JDM Fit have been to the local Honda dealer. Their servicing pricing is really good and they're super honest and open. I might consider it, but with the prices they actually want, I could buy a nearly new Fiesta ST or Holden Barina RS rather than the new Fit RS.

 

If I was an expert I'd be driving a Rolls, but with good credit, an astute borrower can finance a car purchase for very, very little these days. I'd rather have the cash available for running costs or unexpected expenses...or beer. And paying cash isn't going to build credit.

 

The fit's mark-up is only 250.00.

 

They must have lost money when they sold to me then

 

Back when gas was $4, my payments and gas money combined were coming out to about $30 a month more than gas alone in the pig I was driving before. In a better, safer car that passed inspection and wasn't shedding parts.

I didn't need $15k in my pocket that day, just a pen and the key to the 207,000 mile beater I traded. Pretty nice deal, I think.

 

Back when gas was $4 a gallon.