Question about Honda Financing, Vehicle Price, Recent Grad Promotion

I'm new to this all so here's what I'm dealing with..


I'm in the process of buying a 2005 Civic Sedan EX AT and am being
offered the recent college graduate promotion thru Honda Financing
Services. My question is does the recent college stuff have anything to
do with actuall, initial auto price or solely the loan part? I got a
dealer to offer me $200 over invoice on the new car and started up the
paper work. I researched the invoice $ amount for my specific car and
calculated the exact price I should pay. I don't have my loan finalize
but do have all the paper work here. I don't trust auto dealer, so I
double checked all the paper work and added up what the price should
have been compared to invoice and it ended up $150 below invoice --
well, the invoice amounts I found on autos.msn.com, Intellichoice.com,
www.carbuyingtips.com, and a couple other spots. I'm wondering if
somebody hit the wrong key somewhere when typing up pricing stuff, or
if it's possible the invoice amount is actually $350 below what is
listed everywhere on-line for my exact model. Finding this strange, I
began wondering if this "recent college grad" promotion had anything to
do with the lower price. There's a "DISCOUNT <$3577>" in the "Dealer
Added or Deleted Options:" box of "Vehicle Purchase Order" form. Could
it be some sales guy just screwed up the math in my favor?


Keeping my fingers crossed,
-- First time Honda buyer ---

 

Please understand that Honda doesn't sell the car to you. The
dealership does--and the dealership is an independent business.

The most Honda could do is offer rebates to you or to the dealer for
your graduate status.

Honda's finance arm offers the finance rate, which the dealer sells to
you (he gets paid for selling you the money, too).

Sounds like the dealer screwed up. I've never, ever heard of cash back
to anyone based on the recent graduate status. In fact, Honda
traditionally doesn't do the familiar "cash back" at all; they subsidize
the sales of their cars through their finance arm, with good finance
rates.

There's no doubt they do the holdback thing, but that's not the usual
"cash back" rebate that GM, for example, has been hawking for several
years now.

 

Thanks for the response. I guess I managed to get $200 over invoice
with them not charging me for $300 of stupid extras that they had hoped
to milk me for. You know, the linings for the doors and above the tires
on below the fenders. Oh, and those lugnut lock thingies! I had added
those in with all the other charges and was getting $100 under invoice
apparently and didn't realize the guy was too lazy to remove any of
them; if at all possible.

At least, I have a brand spankin' new 2005 Civic EX to dart around in!

 

I recall buying my GS-R in '95. AHFC had a 2.9/4.9/6.9% financing
special that was exceptional at the time. As I was filling out the
paperwork, the finance manager at the Acura dealer was telling me
that part of the "dealer contribution" was that they didn't get a
commission. I think normally they would have offered third party
financing which made them money.