Readers of the this blog may know I’m on a hunt to buy the new Honda Civic Type R. Production on this hottest Civic model is extremely scarce: as of this writing, only 826 cars have made it to the United States market since the end of October last year. You know what that means! Hefty dealership markups if you want to take one of these home.
While I don’t particularly enjoy paying over MSRP for anything, I understand the basics of supply and demand. When even ordinary cars have markups in this market, low-volume enthusiast cars will be doubly so. There’s zero incentive for a dealership to sell at MSRP, unless they either really like you, or you’ve already given them enough business previously to justify them doing you a solid. A middle-of-nowhere small town dealership will probably have less markup, but in populous California, I’m fighting with lots of willing buyers.
I have one advantage, however: time. There’s no urgency at all for me to buy right now. If it’s not this year, next year is just fine. The plan was always to wait out the initial rush of buyers and let them pay the meatier markups. I can swoop in later when the tacked-on money isn’t so insane ($60,000 for any Civic is kind of ridiculous).
However, I have been sending out some feelers to dealers that have a Civic Type R in the color I want: Championship White. It’s funny some of the replies I’ve been getting. I made a competitive offer on one car, and the dealer said their salespeople are currently working with buyers that offered $2,000 higher me - would I be able to match? I’m thinking, “Then take those offers! Why are you still talking to me?!”
It’s a negotiating tactic, of course. If the dealer truly had higher offers than mine, they wouldn’t be still texting me. Car buying is so much calmer and fun when I don’t really need to buy the car.
Sprouts.