05 Feb 09 No Better Public Incentive from Honda to Car Shoppers in February 2009

As most car manufacturers in the United States, Honda sales dropped 30.9% in January, but it seems there is no plan for Honda to better the incentive to its customer this month, at least those public incentives.

There is no increase in dealer cash for Honda cars and SUVs. The previous promotion got extended.  The only exception is the 2009 Honda Odyssey. Currently, there is $2250 dealer incentive on this minivan, compared with $1250 last month. Keep in mind that since dealer incentives are given to dealer from Honda, the amount is not taxable, which means it will be factored into your selling price on your car invoice.

However, put those public incentives aside, what car shoppers might be interested in is that if there is hidden incentive available as hidden incentive discussion is what makes us special from others.

There is no resource would confirm this, but from our obversation and speculation, there is probably a $500 incentive on certain models, including at least 2009 Honda Accord, 2009 Honda CR-V and 2009 Honda Fit. This hidden incentive might be a volume-based bonus that certain dealers that reach the quota set by Honda could get.

You might be wondering how the speculation comes out. There is a Honda dealer offering $1250 below invoice for 4cyl Accords, $1,500 below invoice for 6cyl Accords, $500 below invoices for Honda Fits and $1,000 below invoice for CR-Vs. Yes, the invoice price from dealer is higher than the national invoice as they include advertisement fees, port fees, or whatever-they-could-name fees, but it is just an offer from dealer that salesmen would love to sell you the car at the price.

The trend is shown that the price dealer below is just $500 more than the public incentives for those models. What interest us is the Honda Civic is not listed in the  offer. while Honda Fit is on the list. It is how we speculate that the cash being given to dealers is based on the quota set as the dealer might not sell enough Civic yet. You might think there is holdback as well, but dealer will never give out holdback with this kind of offer because they need to reserve something for themselves.

Another observation is thatfor Honda CR-V, it seems $1,500 below actual invoice is not that hard for car shoppers, while the Honda Accords have been sold for $1,500 below for awhile. Therefore, make sure you get the best price for Honda cars as there might be more dealer cash than people expect. Give dealers an very aggresive offer to start with, and make sure you get the best deal possible.

After your purchase, please report your car price to us so we could help more car shoppers to save money!

Tags: Car Pricing News

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