Summary

What – Mags & I bought a blue S2000 together

When – June 12, 2002, took delivery at 8pm

Where – Honda of Oakland thru Fleet Sales (Frank)

Cost – $32,860 (MSRP) + tax, docs, spoiler ($490)

Background

Ever since Mags saw the car when it first came out, she loved it and she wanted it. However, she never had a reason or the means to buy it until recently. She had to give her current vehicle (Dakota truck) to her sister, so she needed to replace her ride. That’s the reason/excuse she needed. Since the car is rather expensive, she asked for my assistance. We worked out a deal, in which we own the car 50/50, splitting everything down the middle, including driving time. Hopefully, that works out! =P

The Hunt: Shopping Experience

Since this car is pretty rare (only 5000 imported per year) and the color we wanted is not very popular (ie. they don’t make that many), we had a hard time finding the car. Here’s our story on our S2000 shopping experience……

We started seriously shopping in early May and we found one in Cerritos at Norm Reeves Honda at MSRP, but I was hesitant to buy it simply because I thought I could find a better deal, so we passed it up.

We started to call around dealerships in the Bay Area and found that everyone is charging about $5,000 over MSRP for their S2000 and no one has the blue one in stock.

When we asked for below MSRP, they laughed and said that if we could do better than their price, buy it! Pretty snobby people!

So, we went online to shop – www.cars.com, www.autoweb.com, www.edmunds.com, www.autobytel.com. As usual, we get immediate responses back from the Internet Sales dept, but no one has the S2000 in stock in the color that we want, but we did come up with a couple of leads.

Two dealerships got back to us – Capitol Honda in San Jose (Me) and Honda of Oakland (Mags). Both are willing to sell the car to us at MSRP, but neither one had the blue one stock. Both will let us know when they have the blue one in stock.

During this time, we got kind of discouraged, so we started looking at other alternatives, mainly the Audi TT. We test-drove the Audi TT from the dealership on Stevens Creek. The Sales Manager let us take the $40,000 car out by ourselves!! The TT was nice, but I liked the 225HP version which cost in excess of $40K, way beyond our price. Right after, we called Capitol Honda, who said that we can test-drive the silver S2000 that they have in stock. We went there and test-drove the car…..one word – AWESOME!!!! I loved it!

By early June, we have contacted every major Honda dealership in the Bay Area and most Honda dealerships in Sacramento and Los Angeles. No one has a blue car, but a bunch of dealerships said that they have the car on order. We kind of settled into a waiting stance.

During the second week of June, we started hearing from various dealership saying that they have a yellow or black or silver one in stock, but as usual, they’re asking for anywhere from $1K to $4K over MSRP.

Then Honda of Oakland called and said they’ll be receiving a blue S2000 this week and they’ll let us know when they get it.

Wednesday, June 12, they called Mags and let her know that the car just arrived at the dealership. She called me and I made an appt at 7pm to go see the car. At this point, we were still kind of wary of getting the car. We thought it might be some kind of trick.

We got there early around 6:30pm and Frank, the Fleet Sales Manager, showed us the car, prepped and ready to roll in the back lot. He gave us the credit apps and over the next hour, we filled out paperwork and waited for finance. The Financing Manager tried to sell us the Extended Warranty ($1500), Security System ($550), Car Care ($495), but we turned down everything. We drove out of there with a 5.6% APR loan! YEAH!!

Then we went to surprise Tony and Amelia since we’re in the area…hehehe!

After we got it home and made room for it in the garage, we waited until the following day to put Scotchgard, Armor-all, and leather conditioner on it before taking it out again. Dude, for a small car, there sure is a lot of surface area to cover!

Anyways, that’s it! If you ever need help shopping for a car, we’re more than happy to go test-driving with you and give you some bargaining tips!