[Tom]

I went with my brother and our friend to a few dealerships this weekend. My buddy is looking for a new coupe to replace his Civic that replaced his Civic Si.

We stopped in at the local Honda dealership. A cute salesgirl gets my buddy and is starting to walk him/us outside to look at an Accord Coupe.

One of the other salesman who was talking to two other salesman stops me and asks me if it is my GTO. I tell them what I paid, etc.

They ask if they can check out the car. Next thing you know three salesman at a busy Honda dealership are outside poking around my car. The hood, doors and trunk were open, a lot of "sh!t this is nice", etc. not one nasty comment. Just a bunch of car guys enjoying a nice car! A bunch of questions to me about how it performs, a few comments about what they read and my thoughts on the comments (lot of lean, yeah, but I come from a Porsche and a Z28 with a very worked suspension so anything is going to lean) etc

My brother was trying to be involved with both conversations but the salesgirl took our buddy too far from us. Then all of a sudden my brother and I stepped back from the GTO so a customer could check out the car too when we started to chuckle.

Picture this, three salesman and a customer really enjoying a Pontiac with the giant Honda sign in the background, and one guy blipping the throttle.

Wish I had my camera!!

Wish all salesman have such knowledge of cars and respect for the competition.
arty

 

[westell]

i thought people stared and commented UNTIL i put the flat black rally stripes on the Phantom Black GTO

just about every gas station, and parking lot peopel are commenting.

i actually had a girl on the freeway pass me, change two lanes to the right, drop back and come around for another look.

last week, a guy blocked me off as i tried to pull out of a gas station so he could talk about the car. wrong thing to do in Texas, I already had my 9mm in my hand. CCW licensed

 

[djdub]

The dealer I bought my GTO from is also a Honda dealer, strangely enough.

Well...at first I originally went to the dealer to look at an Accord V6 coupe. They had a black one on the lot that stickered for about $29k. I told the salesman that it was the car I wanted but that I was going to have negative equity in the car I was trading and asked what he could do for me on a lease. They appraised my 2004 Tiburon GTV6 6-speed at about $13K which meant I had about $8K in negative equity. The Honda dealer then told me with $2000 down for 48 months, the Accord would be $800/month. I laughed in his face and he told me it was because of the neg. eq. I had guessed the monthly payment would be high, but I figured more like $0 down and $600/month. And I'm no idiot when it comes to dealing with car salesmen. I've bought or leased 5 cars in 4 years. So needless to say I walked out. The whole time I was there, I felt like the salesguy acted like Hondas were the greatest cars ever built and that he could care less about selling me a car.

The next day I went to the Pontiac dealer right next door, owned by the same dealership as the Honda place I went to. They gave me $15,500 on a trade-in and 2 days later I'm driving a brand new GTO off of the lot with $0 down and $503/month for a 48 month Smartbuy.

As I'm leaving with the new car, I had to cut across the Honda dealer's lot to go home (I live around the corner). Out of sheer luck the Honda salesman I dealt with is standing outside talking to some other salesman. They all turn to look when they hear the roar of the LS1 and you should've saw the look on the guys face when he realized it was me. Of course I gave him a beep and a wave.

So long story short (wait...too late), I got a $34,000 monster for a hell of a lot less than a $29,000 Uncle Ben's special and from my experience I will never, ever buy a Honda. This episode only adds to the fact that my mother-in-law has 2004 Accord and a 2004 Pilot and has had numerous problems with the cars themselves as well as Honda as a company.