Extremely upset, need advice

Hi, I have tried posting this back to my original topic but have been having problems all night with this site. I couldn’t post a reply to the new topic so I have started a new one. This is in regards to “which one should we buy”.



I am so upset I feel I am going to be sick.



Tonight my husband and I just bought a CRV LX. The deal was contingent on them putting the “cargo tray” in for free. This was a critical issue for me because i really wanted this part and if I couldn’t get it as part of the negotiated deal we were probably going to buy the EX model from another dealer that was giving us a very good price on the EX.



So we got to the dealership and everything seemed to be going smooth initially. Unfortunately because of our timing we were not able to negotiate out the financing ahead of time, which is always what i like to do. We made it clear to the honda dealer that we knew our credit was excellent and we could get 3.9 from AAA, and if we didn’t get a very good rate from them we would be refinancing immediately. It only costs 25 dollars I found out to refinance through AAA. In the end he gave us 4.2 which is pretty close… but when he plugged in the numbers we realized it was too high… and he said, oops i accidentally put in MSRP instead of the price you paid. He then went to check our paperwork. What happens to people who aren’t paying attention?



Ok next thing is apparently my fault, but i am so upset because I think the salesperson knew what I wanted and used my wrong terminology against me. Possibly an honest mistake, but I am not sure based on the tactics that dealerships use. Apparently the cargo tray is the cheap piece of rubber that is on the bottom of the floor. It is a useful item but only 100 dollars and not what I thought I had negotiated out. I had only heard of the hard piece of plastic that separates the trunk section referred to as the cargo tray (this exists so you can put groceries or bags on top but other things below it). I was quoted by one dealership that this was a 400 dollar item and I was pretty sure the guy called it a cargo tray. I have never heard of anything other than a cargo tray and a cargo net as far as terminology goes. I had no idea that there were multiple cargo accessories. But if you want to hammer me for making a mistake with the terminology, then I will take the blame for that piece of it… but regardless I don’t think I should have to buy the car if the deal is not what I thought I was agreeing to?



So we went hours trying to get the ppwk completed… they took forever to get things done. we had our poor child with us. When we went out to look at the car when it was cleaned up and ready…that is when the confusion with the cargo tray was noticed. We said that isn’t what we wanted. I explained I wanted the item in the EX and was pretty clear on what i wanted.



After a long time and an argument with the salesperson over this, they finally agreed to give us what we want but the parts dept was closed so I can’t get it until tomorrow. My husband was able to take it home tonight.



I am now besides myself, because i just found out on a honda forum that the part i really want is called a “cargo deck”. I don’t even see it listed as an accessory I can buy on their website… but i had a price quoted to me already?



I am so upset, apparently there are numerous cargo accessories. I told the guy I wanted the thing on the EX and is he sure we are talking about the same thing. He says yes.



Now I think I am getting the wrong item again. I looked online, the cargo cover is something to hide stuff that goes on top and it is not nearly as expensive.



We really didn’t get the deal we thought we were getting and I don’t even want the car if I can’t have the deck.



I am so upset about this. I cannot believe this is happening.



Can we contact them tomorrow and say we are returning the car if we can’t get the item that I want? Is it too late since we took possession? I know you have 3 days legally to cancel a deal but I don’t know if there are any repercussions or costs to doing so.



I know some of you will say this is my fault, regardless of whether the dealer knew what I wanted, because I used the wrong terminology… but in the end I feel like this is not what I thought we were buying? Once again I have been left with a bad taste in my mouth from a car dealership.]



Also I just want to reiterate that I explained to the guy what i wanted in the end and said “are you sure we are talking about the same thing” and he said “yes”. So I thought we were finally straightened out.



I don’t know what to do, but I am just sick over this and I think they are going to tell me to forget it… I am out of luck. Especially because it got a little heated with the salesperson last night… and the item I want is clearly more expensive.



What options do I have now?



First, never take you young children with you when finalizing a deal for a car. You need time to concentrate and focus, and children get fussy and become a distraction.

I’d say take the car back and cancel the deal. Then if the dealer comes up with the item you want you can leave happy. You have to start off this negotiation willing and able to return the car and cancel the whole thing. Don’t drive the car anywhere in the meantime, put the fewest miles on the odometer as you can. You should not have driven it home, but now just drive it back to the dealer.

After canceling this deal, if the dealer doesn’t get you the cargo gizzmo you want then you are back to square 1. Will the EX deal still be in effect now that we are at July 1st. If so, buy the EX.

My feeling is you are buying a car, not a cargo tray. Try for what you want, if you can’t get it life will go on. You can be disappointed and learn some lessons, but this isn’t worth losing a lot of sleep about.

This is why people hate buying cars.

First of all, calm down. It’s a CAR, for heaven’s sake. This is not the end of the world. You made several classic car-buying mistakes, but you still may be able to salvage this situation.

You can cancel the deal this morning if that’s what you want to do. It won’t be easy, and it won’t be fun, but you CAN do it. You will have to go to the dealership, you can’t do this over the phone.

As a former car salesperson, here’s my advice:

Be firm, be polite, state your case, and DO NOT back off. It’s YOUR money and you should get what you thought you were getting. This may take several more hours of your time, because they don’t want to give up anything, but you have to stand firm, no matter what they say, and tell them you WILL cancel the deal if you don’t get the accessory you want. Then follow through if necessary.

They may threaten, they may say all kinds of crazy things, they may try to make you lose your temper. Don’t waffle. As soon as you budge on fraction of an inch from your position your cause is lost. You cannot give in, not one tiny little bit.

You’ll probably have to see the sales manager, or some other honcho. Doesn’t matter. State your case over again, as many times as it takes, but DO NOT back off. Once they realize you won’t budge they will probably give you what you want. You just have to make them realize, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you’re not going to back off.

You and your husband have to be 100% together on this. If they sense a division they will separate you and conquer you. Don’t let that happen.

One more thing; Find a babysitter if necessary, but don’t take the kids with you. You need to concentrate on the deal.

Salesmen Are Salesmen.

"Unfortunately because of our timing we were not able to negotiate out the financing ahead of time, which is always what i like to do." What? I can’t believe it whenever I hear about people who finance major purchases (houses, cars) and don’t or can’t amortize their own loan schedule before or during the transaction. This makes you “putty in the hands” of sales people.

link to one simple amortizer: http://www.yona.com/loan/

I advised getting the EX. I also advised slowing down. This was from the previous conversation: [“Which is about 400 dollars below the consumer reports bottom line price. sounds like a pretty good deal. This is good until tomorrow.” If this makes you hurry into a decision then you are not being rational. Stop. Take a deep breath. Start over more slowly and cautiously.]

I hope you can get it straightened out now, but I’ve not heard of returning a purchased car unless this was understood prior the sale.

You didn’t heed the advice given you and now you are asking for more. Although this is an upset and inconvenience, the value may be in lessons learned that will serve you in the future. Experience truly is the best teacher.

Good Luck,
CSA

So you don’t make another expensive mistake, I have some advice for you. In your post “Which One Should We Buy?”, you made the comment about your mother giving you $10,000 if you will set aside so much a month for your children’s education. Well, here is what happened to me on educating my son. He did nothing through elementary and junior high school. He told me in eighth grade that he was going to quit school at 16 and be a truck driver. I told him that driving a truck was fine, but there were three things wrong with his plans: 1) one has to be 18 to get a commercial license; 2) he wasn’t going to lie around the house two years waiting to turn 18; and 3) no trucking firm would hire a person without a high school diploma. I sent my son to a military academy for high school. His sophomore year he told me that he had lowered his career objecdtive. He decided rather than drive a truck he wanted to be an English teacher. I told him that majoring in English would open up many doors for him, and to consider the teaching field very carefully because it isn’t a financially lucrative field (I am a teacher). In his third year of college, my son told me that he wasn’t going into education. I breathed a sigh of relief–now I have a son who can support me in my old age. My euphoria only lasted a minute. “What field have you chosen?”, I asked. “I feel a call to be a minister”, he replied. Well, he went to seminary and while in seminay, he started working with a church. The first thing he had to do was obtain a chauffer’s license so he could drive the church bus. I should have let him be the truck driver.

Your car situation will work itself out. You bought a very good car, so enjoy the car. Don’t let this one item ruin the car for you. In my state, we have a state park that overlooks a river. The view is breath taking. Some years back, a power company built a plant on the opposite bank of the river. I heard an older woman complaining about the smoke stacks ruining the view. Another person responded,“The beautiful view is still there–you don’t have to look at the smoke stacks!”

Incidentally, my son,after completing his seminary training in children’s ministry took an “interim” job in a private elementary school teaching third grade. He will start his 5th year in this position–teaching has become his ministry. Don’t fret over your purchase–things have a way of working themselves out.

A Little Levity: Have You Ever Heard Of The Six "P"s?

Prior Planning Prevents P_ _ _ Poor Performance.

From what I see, you are most upset about some kind of “cargo deck” thing. Can you live without it? Can you get it installed at an aftermarket place?

McP is right on the money! But first, leave the emotional package at home! It’s just a CAR!! Don’t have a breakdown over a $400 plastic tray! You just spent much more than that. They probably didn’t make $400 profit on the car, so they are NOT just going to give it to you. Live without it or pay for it. Offer to pay “dealer cost” on the part and BE HAPPY!!! Life is too short for all this drama!

This one eluded me. Do you happen to know a nurse with a Suzuki?

First off, what is the deal this website? I have never had more problems with passwords then on this site.

I appreciate everyone’s advice. I just wanted to point out a few things…

This really wasnt as much of a rush job as some of you are making this out to be. I had researched these cars for months and did my homework. I had contacted numerous dealerships to get the best quotes. I had dealerships competing against eachother, I had researched on edmunds and consumer reports. In the end it came down to two offers we liked. There was one slightly lower offer that I would have to drive out of state for and wasn’t worth the hassle. Other than that these were the best offers.

The only mistake I really made here was not being clear enough on the exact terminology of the cargo shelf. That part was my fault.

The other mistake that people are pointing out is regarding taking a child. Overall, I agree. However, I have a baby just under 12 months who is going through extreme separation anxiety and we can’t leave him with anyone. Despite this we were very careful to check our paperwork over and caught the financing “mistake” immediately. So having our son there made it slightly more challenging, but we had no choice.

It was somewhat rushed in the end only because we sold my husbands car, and we wanted to get the best deal on our purchase so we wanted to buy at month end. My husband literally sold his car sunday afternoon… My husband needed a car to drive and we wanted to get the month end deals… so we thought it actually made sense to try to get this done this month. I had done the research and had gotten two decent offers.

As far as the financing goes, this wasn’t a big deal once we found out we could refinance with AAA for 25 dollars if we weren’t happy with the dealerships financing. The dealer actually didn’t screw us on financing, since 4.2 percent is pretty good right now for a 5 year loan (since honda doesn’t do any major incentives with financing lately).

So I am not sure why I am being told that I poorly planned this. I planned this for months. As I see it, my big mistake here was not properly explaing with correct terminology the cargo shelf that i wanted. On the honda website it is actually called a shelf. I am just laughing now at the different terminology. Tray is for the thing that covers the bottom. shouldn’t that be a “mat”?

Anyway, in the end we got the Shelf we wanted. It turns out the salesperson who kept saying “cover” was referring to the “shelf”. It sounds like even honda dealerships are confused with their own terminology.

Oh well.

And yes in the big scheme of things some of you are right… It is just a cargo shelf. I am buying a car , not a cargo shelf… however when you have worked out a deal you want to get what you want. You don’t want to walk away from a transaction like this with a sour taste in your mouth… and that is consistently the experience for car buyers.

There is good reason most everyone dreads buying a new car… inevitably something goes wrong even when you tried to cover all your bases.

Thank you to all those that helped me!

I told you that things have a way of working themselves out. I think that one problem in buying a car is that it is hard to find a salesperson who really knows the product. From the time I bought my first car back in 1961, I think I have had only two really knowledgeable sales person. The first was back in 1965 when I had my first full time job. I was looking for a new car without frills. After visiting a couple of dealers, I went to a Rambler dealer. I thought I wanted a Rambler American. However, the models the dealer had on his lot had more equipment than I thought I wanted. The salesman said, “Would you really like to save some money?” “Of course”, I answered. He showed me a Rmabler CLassic–next size up but bottom of the line. The car was a repossesion with 7000 miles. I bought it for $1750 and drove it through my next round of graduate school and until I bought a house and was settled in. I contrast this with the experience my wife and I had in 2003 in trying to purchase a Toyota 4Runner. The local salesman didn’t seem to know much about the product. We went to the next town to find a good salesperson who knew the vehicle and was willing to do a computer search to find what we had in mind.

Congratulations on your new car! I hope it runs so well that your son gets it when he turns 16! It seemed from your other posts that you are a detail-oriented person, and your latest post shows that. I’m surprised I actually read the whole thing (that’s a comment on my attention span, too). And don’t be too hard on everyone here. We haven’t got the slightest idea who you are, and offer the best advice we can given the distance between us. There is a tendency to suggest more than many OP’s think in necessary because of that.

First off, what is the deal this website? I have never had more problems with passwords then on this site.

There should be a little check box near where you put your password in that says “stay logged in”, or some other terminology. password problem solved.

This really wasnt as much of a rush job as some of you are making this out to be.

To be fair, the way some of your post was written, it suggested you were in a hurry to buy, and was rushing the deal too quickly. We can’t tell you had dealerships competing against each other, or that you spent several months researching vehicles.
Now that it’s been clarified, you’re in the top 1% on this site that does their homework before purchasing. Most just go in, like how it looks, and buy it. Some probably don’t even do a real test drive, just a short, round the block, 1 mile drive.