matt wrote:

> 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.

The basics are simple. You have to be willing to walk out of a
dealership emptyhanded if you don't like the initial results.
I've been pressured with, "what can I do to see you walk out
with the keys". Then I shopped around, got some more quotes,
walked back to the dealership and got my price after looking
around.

The other thing is that you can now use Edmunds or any of the
auto services to contact multiple dealers for quotes. The Civic
Hybrid doesn't have options, so quotes should be. And don't
forget that financing is very important, unless you plan on
paying cash. Once I took an advertised factory financing special,
and the financing manager told me he was a bit miffed about it.
Something about not making anything off of it, when normal
financing deals net them decent profits.