I went last week to a Honda dealer to trade in my car for a new Accord
Value Pack (VP, base  model). I was surprised by all their tactics to
get the most out of my money. I don't blame the  salesperson because he
was nice and helpful, but I think the sales manager went a little too
far  in his methods. I also have to say that after the deal was done,
they were all nice guys and very  helpful with all the process. I'm
going to enumerate the things I consider bad tactics because  they were
just too many:

1) When I told them I wanted the Value Pack, the manager said that it
had no power windows. That I better choose the LX or EX. That's not
true.

2) When I came back next day he said that VP had no Cruise Control. I
checked the car I wanted to buy and I noticed the cruise control was
there.

3) When we were negotiating the price he showed me the invoice price, I
said the invoice price I saw at edmunds.com was lower. When he noticed
I was not accepting that price he showed me that there was about $200
marketing charge and accepted to remove it. Nothing bad about this part
because I think dealers usually try to add these hidden charges without
telling customers.

4) After negotiating the price for my trade in and the price of the
Accord VP, he came with a blank page  (where all the totals are
calculated) for me to sign. I said I wanted to see the final numbers
before I sign the page. I said I cannot sign a blank sheet for them
later to add the totals. They accepted.

5) Then he came with the same sheet with a total amount higher than
what we negotiated. I told them that we had to subtract the amount I
get from my trade in. At this time the manager pretended to be
exasperated with me, like if I was asking for too much. He said that he
would do it later and refused to write it in the sheet. So I took the
pen and had to do the subtraction in front of him and underlined the
final amount. He accepted that amount.

6) At about 9:00 PM (they were already closed but there were still a
few customers finalizing their deals), I was tired but happy when the
manager brought the paper work describing my monthly payments. Let me
say that I have very good credit (over 700), and the manager told me he
was going to run my information with about 15 banks and get me the best
deal. Not true, he got me financing with Honda. How can he run my
information with 15 banks and come with a loan from honda financeing?
Maybe I'm missing something here. Anyway he got me 6.6% interest which
I consider too high but I still accepted. Maybe I should have got the
loan with my credit union.

7) He showed my monthly payments at about $35 over what I estimated,
and handed me a pen to sign. I asked me how can it be so high? Then he
said I was getting the 7 years/100K miles warranty. When I insisted in
how much it costed, he said $1600. He said if I don't take the warranty
I'm taking a big risk if the car breaks. I asked him how can he tell me
these are the best cars in the market and now he's telling me that I'm
taking a big risk because they can break. Finnally he accepted to
remove the warranty and I got the payment amount I wanted.

I remember at a Chevrolet dealer in 1998 I had a very good experience
buying my chevy Malibu, I still remember the name of the Chevy sales
person (Mike), I can't believe at Honda these guys gave me such a hard
time.

After the negotiation, the manager and sales person were very nice and
helpful.