Here is my buying experience:
Since i had about a month to buy my next car, i had a lot of time to read a few forums on car buying tactics and emailed 7-8 dealers for OTD quotes. Did not pick up any calls and only negotiated over emails. Got a quote from a dealer that seemed to be the lowest i could get in that area. Contacted a car buying concierge that has a service that will take your written quote from a dealer and try to find you a lower price for the same features. They then split the difference in savings with you if they can find some or there is a $0 fee for their service. They got back to me and said they couldn't improve upon the quote i had from the dealer within 100 miles of the dealership.
Got an appointment with the dealer and showed up with the quote papers printed out. Since this was an internet quote, i did not get the same salesperson who had provided the online quote. The salesperson i got took the papers and went to the 'manager' to confirm that this was a price they could give me (even though this was an OTD quote). He came back with a higher number and said they had forgotten to add delivery and documentation fee in the OTD price. Unbeknownst to him, i had a separate print out of the OTD price broken down which did include these fees that he mentioned. I guess he did not know the format that their internet sales people send these quotes in. From that point on, they started the time wasting tactics car dealers are famous for. I don't think they were too happy selling me the car at the quoted price. The finance manager that was then assigned to me did not seem too happy either or was just generally 'non-caring' about selling me this car.
Then began the scare tactics of selling add-ons for scratch and paint maintenance, tire insurance and 3rd party extended warranty. Since this is a relatively new technology for honda/me, i was interested in a warranty and was quoted 3rd party $2560 extended warranty for 6yr/100,000 miles. I showed them the Hyannis Honda quote that i picked up from this forum. He was very skeptical of it and did not even offer to match it but instead tried to convince me that you can't buy Honda care from a dealer if you aren't buying the car from them. After declining all other add-ons, we were asked to wait in the waiting area for about an hour. Finally between the sales person and the finance person, we finished the deal and drove away in our new car.
TL;DR:
Got the Solar Metallic Silver Clarity Touring for ~$34500 OTD (incl. registration, state tax and other fees) in NJ with door edge films, splash guards and wheel locks included. PM me if you want actual names of any of the research tools, dealer name, etc that i used. Wasn't very happy with the dealer experience, but worth it for this price.
