Uh, no. But then, I don't worship at the altar of Father Honda and his band of war profiteers, either.
Let me try to explain this one more time.
Assuming I drive 15,000 per year (pretty accurate assumption, actually), if I'm driving a car that gets 33 mpg (Ford Focus), that means I'm going to consume 455 gallons of fuel during that time. If I drive a car that gets 36 mpg (Honda Civic), I'm going to consume 417 gallons of fuel in a year; 38 gallons less. With gas at $4.00/gallon, that means that the Focus is going to cost me $152 more per year to operate than the Civic. Are you with me so far? If both cars cost the same amount to drive off of the lot, it's a no-brainer; you buy the Civic. However, that was NOT the case! The Civic was $4500 MORE than the Focus and the Honda dealer was too busy trying to RAPE me to realize that I was NOT one of their converts who would just blindly sign up for it without thought! Anyway, at $152 per year, it would take the Civic 30 years to "catch up" with the Focus.
I tried to explain this concept to the Honda guy, but he didn't seem to get it! Read up, Honda guy! Even if your car gets better fuel economy than the Ford, it's not so much better that the up-front investment makes any sense!
On the other hand, why was I buying a new car in the first place? Well, my F-150 gets about 15 mpg, which means it's going to consume exactly 1000 gallons of fuel in a year if I drive 15,000 miles. The Focus that I bought is going to consume 455 gallons during the same period; that's 545 gallons less than the F-150. At $4.00/gallon, that means that the Focus is going to save me $2180 in fuel cost alone, meaning that it is essentially going to pay for itself in fuel savings! What a concept!!!
As happy as I am with the Ford dealer and what they were able to do to help me, THAT'S how totally disappointed I am with the Honda dealership!!! MDB loves, loves, LOVES Honda cars and every experience she's ever had with one. I've never heard anything bad about them, either, so I was more than willing to listen and try to work a deal for a Civic, but they just were not willing to come off of their ridiculous price demand! $1500 OVER the MSRP! That's completely unheard of! What's sad, my friends, is that the same car we passed on will be snatched up in another minute by some poor lemming who will blindly buy Honda because of the perceived savings in fuel! I have half a mind to write the AG's office and demand an investigation! I mean, this price-gouging scheme they've devised is about as close to war profiteering or disaster scalping as anything I've ever seen on the open market and I realy hope that people are smart enough to see through it and NOT buy Hondas because of it! I hope people boycott Honda and refuse to buy their products for a very long time!
There.....I feel better now!
"But Dan!" you say, "There were so many other cars out there to choose from! Why did you limit it to only those three?"
Well, that's a pretty good question, actually. I am and always have been a Ford guy. Fords have always been good to me and the Ford dealer that I prefer has always been a very honest, up-front, friendly kind of place that bends over backwards to offer the kind of service that keeps it's customers coming back. I bought my first vehicle from them in 1988 and then, last year, I bought another one from them! MDB likes Hondas and has never had a bad experience with them, so we decided to look them over as well. I've owned a Corolla before and IT was a really good car, so we decided to include them in our list of potential cars to buy. My mom has always driven Chevrolet and she seems to like them, but I've never had much luck with them and I just don't like the way they're engineered, so I didn't consider a GM product. I wouldn't drive a Nissan if you gave it to me, and I feel pretty much the same about Hyundai, Kia, Suzuki, and all of those other non-Japanese Asian brands that seem to fall apart as soon as the warranty expires. Besides, if we couldn't get what we needed with those three brands, we probably weren't going to find it elsewhere, right?
Okay....enough said! If you have any other questions, send them to BoycottHonda.com and I'll answer them there!
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