New Car Buying and the Internet

I am looking at buying a new 2007 Honda Accord Hybrid. I started by getting a pre-approved loan from USAA since at the time they had better rates than NFCU where I do most of my banking. One of the benefits USAA provides is a service that will negotiate a new car price for you. You give them the model and details and they do the price debate and get everything setup for you. It is supposed to take 72 hours. I called last night to begin the process. First, they told me it would take up to a week, I said fine. Second, once they found out what I wanted they indicated there was no negotiating on that model and more broadly hybrids in general. Ok so much for that.

Next I went to Honda's web site to work on it. On Honda's site I was able to configure the car as I wanted and then request a quote from an Internet Certified Dealer. The one downside is the page is setup to only allow you to send the request to one dealer. Luckily I could just hit the back button and choose another one. I figured I would see what I could get from them all and try to play them against each other a bit.

I sent requests to the following dealers at about 6:30 PM Thursday, I will keep a log of contacts:

Heritage Honda - This dealer has the benefit of being within walking distance of my house. I got an automated response almost instantly. Then the following morning I got an email at 9:22 AM. This email was very detailed on pricing and fees, I was very pleased with pricing. Sent a follow-up at 10:06 AM asking for quote with my dealer installed options. About 1 PM I got a follow-up quote with all the options, again a very competitive price. Currently by far the leader.  They were the winner and I set up a time on Saturday to go in and finalize.  More on that later.

Schaefer & Strohminger Honda - I got what I think is an automated response about 20 minutes after initial contact. A few minutes later I got another email that seemed automated. At 10:30 AM I got an email asking for me to call him to get pricing details. Since I am trying to do this the "Internet" way I asked him to email me details. He responded again about 15 minutes later with the price on a similar model but not the one I asked for and it was quite a bit more than Heritage. I then emailed him Heritage's quote at about noon to see if he could get closer to it. A few minutes later he wrote back saying if I order one he can get that price but not otherwise.  I got an email from them on Tuesday saying thanks for contacting us.  Then on Thursday a more personalized follow-up and I let them know I bought already.

Northwest Honda - The first email I received was a real email asking me for further info. In this case the question was wrong though since they asked the trim level. The problem being there is no trim level on the hybrid Accord. I wrote them back this morning at 7:16 AM and have yet to hear back as of 1 PM. At 2:43 PM got a response with a base price that is exactly the same as Heritage. I sent back the total price quote to see what they can do at 3:00 PM.  At about 3:15 PM they wrote me back with the same final price.  They would have been my second choice, losing only on location.  They contacted me again as a follow-up on Monday and I let them know I already purchased from Heritage.

Anderson Honda - As of 1 PM on Friday I have gotten nothing beyond the initial automated response from this dealer. I went to this dealer in person in May when I was also looking at the Accord hybrid. At this point unless they can beat Heritage's price I doubt I will be working with them.  I finally heard from Anderson on Monday, the price was about $500 more than the other dealers.  I wrote them back and said I already bought.