one bad and one good
 

first, the good: salmon arm honda in the middle of british columbia (town of salmon arm).

- i travelled almost 500kms by bus to get to this dealership because they offered me such a good deal. not only did i get a very acceptable price from them for the car but i also received a hefty discount on some accessories and several accessories for free without even asking for them. the salesman, trevor english, and i conducted negotiations entirely through email up until the very final stages. he did not feed me any of the usual cr@p that they try to pull with you (other than asking in vain for a deposit over the phone before signing the contract :) ) so i was nervous that when we finally met face to face, he would open the bag of salesman BS. fortunately he was as good in person as he seemed through email and we wrapped things up without a problem. trevor's price for me even beat the auto brokers in the vancouver area, which no other dealer even came close to. i got a small smile on my face when going over the contract when i noticed that they automatically declined the extended warranty without even asking. they knew my kind. no extra fees of any sorts. so thanks trevor and thanks to salmon arm honda.

now, the bad: surrey honda (surrey BC)

-this place was a joke. of all the dealers that i contacted, about half of them flat-out refused to quote prices through email. they still subscribe to the increasingly outdated concept that the mark must be on the lot for a price to be discussed. surrey honda was one of these types of dealership, but their lameness only increases once you do go to their lot. i went to their lot two days in a row and stood around looking at fits for about 20 minutes each time while they completely ignored me and even refused to make eye contact. needless to say: NO SALE. that's not why i am trashing them here however. the reason is because of the poor quality of the cars themselves. the fits that they had on display at the front of the lot were completely filthy. they were covered with dirty rain grime and looking inside, i noticed that interiors were not cleaned in any way. the plastic and carboard were scattered around each model, looking like garbage. a couple of them had missing antennae (not PDI'd properly). the most hilarious thing of all was on the most prominently displayed fit sport with all options right at the front of the lot : a HUGE, long, thick, yellowish-white several days old looking dried bird cr@p running from the top of the passenger side window all the way to the door handle. i just laughed at them and left.