2011 Honda Pilot Touring - Buying Advice

[Triumph]

All -

I am about to purchase a 2011 Honda Pilot Touring and had a couple questions on buying advice.

My plan was to build an excel spreadsheet with rows for all costs (additional accessories, tax, destination charges, finance options, extended warranty and anything else pertinent) and shop it out to the dealers in Houston.

Any advice on how to get a good deal would be much appreciated.

[cofetym]

Play one against the other. If you do a quick search you might find prices paid for 2011.

Hope this helps:2011 prices paid

[stumps]

Triumph,

I just purchased a 2011 Pilot touring March 30th. Here's a few thoughts for you to ponder:

I do believe that your best deal will be had at the end of the month. My theory is that sales managers work on a quota - dealerships have sales goals each month from the manufacturer based on previous sales, etc. when dealerships hit that mark, there is a bonus paid to the dealership for each car sold. So, if the goal is 100 cars, and the bonus is $500 per car, when that 100th car is sold that's $50K to the dealership. this is profit that doesn't show up in the "invoice" price.

Also, the gap between invoice and MSRP has shrunk in the last 15 years - since the publishing of the invoice prices - which to mean means there is below-the-line pricing for most manufacturers.

I'm not the kind of guy who wants to beat the last $50 out of a sales manager, but I don't want to get ripped off and I want to get a good price.

I paid $36,030 plus taxes and tags and a processing fee, on a vehicle with an MSRP of $41,200 and an invoice price of $36,750 (appx).

I ended up paying below invoice, but what I did was I waited until the 29th of March - the last weekend of sales had occurred and the sales managers knew what they had to move by the 31st. I calculated what I thought was a good price, and just told the sales guy at the dealership I wanted to work with that I had received this price at a competing dealership, if they can beat it, I'd buy from them. It took some back and forth, and my first shot was low, but we ended up settling on what I felt was a very good price, and I was happy with the deal. THe dealership seemed happy, which tells me that weren't giving the car away even at that price.

With regard to extended warranties, etc. I never buy them. There is a dealership in NJ that wholesales both warranties and accessories and parts. Their website is Honda Parts at HondaPartsDeals.com: Honda Accessory, Honda Car Parts, Honda Auto Parts, Honda Accord Parts. you can always show these prices to your dealership and see if they'll match them as a bargaining chip if you wanted extended warranties.

FYI - it's not really advertised, but Honda is offering 1.9% on Pilots through May 2nd.

Best of luck, I have a dealership I enjoy working with (the Pilot was my 2nd purchase from them) but sometimes it takes some calling around to figure out what is a good deal and what isn't.

Price is not the only factor, some dealerships really are customer oriented and some aren't, but that part of the buying process is really more up to you.

[cofetym]

The dealer also gets all kinds of kick backs and volume discounts from the manufacturer.