Wednesday, November 24, 2004

Scare Tactics

Meredith and I bought a new Honda Element yesterday. It kinda rocks.

In the process, however, we had to go through the finance department at Honda East. His first mistake was to admit he was friends with the person who sold us our house, with whom we had a months-long dispute over some extra charges.

Then, to sell us extras, he tried a few directions.

First, when trying to convince us to pay for life insurance through him, he said that he knew someone who got cancer after they bought the car, and the insurance covered it. "Not that I'd wish that on anyone", he made sure to add.

Second, when talking about an extended warranty, he offered us a 6 year warranty (3 years is the standard, so really a 3 year extension) for "only" $25 dollars extra per month. When we declined that, he slashed the price all the way to $22 a month. We still declined, and told him that our experience is that Hondas don't often break within that time frame.

His response? "Well, you've never bought a four wheel drive vehicle before." Was he telling us the car he was selling was going to break down? I was dumbfounded by that one.

Despite his best efforts, we escaped with a new car at a good price.

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