Picking the model
My old car, a 2006 Honda Civic Hybrid which I loved, was at the point where I needed to invest money to fix the alignment and buy 4 new tires for the winter, not an inexpensive endeavor. I decided th
at my first decision was really how much longer I wanted to keep the car as it’s 10-1/2 years old and cars are just going to keep going up in price. Not that it was an equal purchase, but both decisions were an investment in the future – tires/alignment for the near future and new car for the new and long future. I went with the longer future.
I had already been eyeing the new 2016 Honda Civics and liked the new styling and a friend had told me that buying a car through Costco was the way to get the best price on a car. So I spent a few days on the computer and checked out the various models to decide what I wanted. It came down to 2 models the EX-T and the EX-L – the only difference was the L had leather trim (seats, steering wheel and shift knob), power driver’s seat adjustment, and an automatic dimming rear view mirror. The only thing I really wanted of those was the power seat adjustment.
Test driving the car
I decided that I needed to go and test drive both models to see first if I really did want a Civic and second if there was much difference between the 2 models. Needless to say there was no difference in how the 2 models drove or handled as they were almost identical. The leather was nice and it always feels more luxurious (for $1500 it better). But the cloth seats were actually just as comfortable and supposedly last longer (if you’re like me and don’t spend any time putting leather conditioner on them over the years). I couldn’t make up my mind so I decided to put in a request on the Costco website for each of the models. Figured that it didn’t hurt as it wasn’t a purchase contract.The car dealership
I had submitted the Costco requests around midnight and not surprisingly I had gotten an automatic email reply shortly after midnight from the dealership who is associated with the 3rd party running the Costco auto program and then a phone call in the morning from the same salesman (Shane). Turns out the dealership is 23 miles away from my city and there can be a lot of traffic driving up there at certain times of the day so I wasn’t going to be rushing up there. I waited until later in the day to call Shane back and had a interesting conversation about what I was looking for and about my car which I wanted to use as a trade-in.The purchase
Well, to make a long story shorter, I finally made it up to the dealership 4 days later and I test drove both models (again). In talking through which model I wanted with Shane he made a very good point (losing some commission in the process I would think) and helped me to make up my mind. If the thing I liked best about the EX-L was that the driver’s seat had a powered adjustment and if I was the person who would be driving the car 99% of the time it didn’t make any sense to spend the extra $1500 when I would only need to adjust the seat once when I buy the car. All of a sudden it made sense to buy the EX-T.After that it took a few minutes for them to get me the price for the new car (less than I had expected) and what they would give me for my old car (also less than I had expected) and for me to accept the deal. Then it took another 2-1/2 hours for them to get the paperwork togethe
r, go through it all with me (much longer than I had thought it would take) and for me to drive away with my new car. But now that it’s all done I am a happy camper and am still amazed at the nice car I’m driving around. Here’s a picture of my new car! Now if I could just figure out where the button is to open the gas tank to fill it up…