All Cars, All the Time

Buying a Honda CR-V

A relative asked me to accompany her on a purchase of a new car, so here's my report. The final decision came down to two vehicles: Honda's CR-V and Hyundai's Tuscon. More specifically, we were looking at the Tuscon Limited 4-WD and the CR-V EX-L AWD.

In trade, we had a 2002 Buick Century Custom with, gulp, 107,000 miles.

Surprisingly here in the Bay Area, California CR-V's are going for around invoice, give or take a hundred or two with the exception of the models with navigation which are quite rare. Tuscon's seem to be in well controlled supply, especially the Limited.

I started off with Internet quotes and I found the following things to be true. Carsdirect.com predicted the Internet offers within $1,000 for the Hyundai and was way off on the CR-V.

Bottom line?

The lowest Hyundai Tuscon Limited 4-WD offer was from Rod and Sunnyvale Hyundai who offered $21,207 on an MSRP of $24,610. No one else on the Internet would touch that number, although after some back and forth a couple offered to match it. Rod seemed very forthright over e-mail and I would recommend him. rod_parfett@sunnyvalehyundai.com

Honda dealers seemed willing to make deals. I settled on Anderson Honda in Palo Alto because of proximity and previous experience. The salesperson we got, Tri, was earnest but really didn't have a command of the English language. It was almost impossible to understand him. However, we worked around that by directly dealing with the floor manager Lee. After some haggling we got an EX-L AWD down to $24,900 from and MSRP of $26,595. Anderson also threw in wheel locks and mud flaps (ooh, ahh). The rest of the money went towards the trade. Ultimately ending with an offer of $3,250. All told the walk out the door price with 8.25% sales tax, + lic , doc fee, etc was $24,000.

I suppose one could've spent another hour with them and ground out a few more hundred here or there, but neither one of us had the patience to do that. In an interesting twist, the F&I office was a pleasant experience. Only harmless chit chat and a short extended warranty pitch.

The bottom line was the combination of color, equipment and the Honda name. The buyer really wasn't interested in driving dynamics other than having decent pep and braking. Both were fine vehicles and I'm sure that either one would serve well.

If I had any gripes about the CR-V it would be about content: no power drivers seat on the top line model? no lighted visor mirrors? express up/down only on the driver's side? Also, the sunroof seemed awfully hot, like they weren't using a high quality solar load controlling glass. I also didn't like the fact that the dealer removed their own security system and left two new screws under the steering wheel. You can see them when you get in and until I cleaned things up there were plastic shards. This should be installed so that it does not mar the interior when removed. My Odyssey suffered no ill effects when the dealer did the same thing, so it can be done.

Overall the whole experience cost a few hours of online time and then about 3 hours at dealers. A pretty painless experience I'd say.