Hello All!
My wife and I are very close to purchasing an '05 or '03 Civic Hybrid.
Although this is not the first car my wife has purchased, it will
essentially be the first I have purchased. I was wondering if anyone
can offer any tips on haggling with the Honda dealership. We feel this
is an important but somewhat unsavory part of purchasing a car. (I
know that some people view haggling as a sport - I hope they will sound
off here!) There may be some general rules of thumb to follow, but I
don't know them and would like any tips anyone could give. We'd like
to get them to come down off the price a bit - I think the sticker on
the '05 is around $20,000.

I was also curious to see if anyone knew the answers to the questions
that the salesman couldn't answer, specifically:
- What happens to the batteries after they are replaced? The
ecofriendly nature of this car is a big selling point for us. But the
fate of dead batteries is unknown to us right now. Would hate to think
they'd end up in a landfill or something.
- Has anyone any expereince with problems in extreme weather
conditions? (tough starts in extreme cold, for example)
- Can some one explain, in as plain a language as possible, under what
circumstances the auto stop feature occurs in the engine? My wife and
I read a little about it in the manual on the test drive, but we're a
bit confused still. Do all of the conditions listed in the manual have
to be present before the engine shuts down? Or just one or two?

Any feedback at all on this car is appreciated. Just for reference,
both of the cars we're looking at have the CVT transmission.

Have great day,
Matt