I had a very strange attempted car-buying experience last night:

After test driving the Civic Hybrid, I sat down with the salesman to start working out a deal.

After he told me the sticker price, I said, “I’m not interested in paying that much for the car.” So he asked what I wanted to pay. Based on information I found here and elsewhere, I made him an offer of $2500 less than the sticker price.

He wrote the offer on his worksheet and got up to “go show it to his manager.” Now, I happened to turn around and watch where he went, and he didn’t even get close to his manager’s desk. But, in any event, he comes back and says, “Great, if you’re ready to buy the car today, we can give that price.” I agreed, and he asked for my credit card – yikes!

I wasn’t interested in giving him any money ’til I had something that looked like a contract or agreement in front of me, and I said so. He took me over to his manager, allegedly to start the paperwork, and his manager said, “I can’t sell you the car for that price. I can’t even come close to matching it. Sorry.”

Remember, my sales guy was supposed to have already checked with the manager on the price I’d offered. Weird, huh? Was it a scam? Was the sales guy just dumb? What’s up?

If you want to avoid this kind of junk, you’d best avoid Cambridge Honda.