Buying a Car

I recently traded in my '99 Honda CRV, with 124,000 miles on it and expensive repairs in its near future, for a new Honda Civic hybrid.  Living way out here in the sticks as we do, I was looking for ways to reduce our carbon-output from all the driving we do to get to services and jobs.  I've been tracking mileage of the new car, and I'm getting 41 mpg., as opposed to the 25 on the old car.  So I'm very happy.   

    However, the buying experience itself left a bad taste in my mouth.  I crumpled to the sales pitch, buying the car from the first dealership I visited, rather than sticking to my plan of visiting the two other dealerships in the area to compare prices.  Wanting to be happy with the process, I was honest, telling them my plan.  The salesman said "What'll it take to get you to stay here and buy from us?"  I shrugged my shoulders.  He put up a finger and ran over to his sales manager.  When he came back, he said "What if my sales manager can prove to you that ours is the lowest price?  Would you buy then?"   

    "Yes," I said, "but how can he do that?" 

    "I don't know, but it'll just take a few minutes."   He ran back over and stood by while the sales manager printed out something on his computer.  When he brought it back, it was new car pricing from the National Honda website, plus bluebook pricing for different conditions of trade-in.  I'd checked out these same documents myself on the web just that morning, but the salesman tailored them to my situation by showing me what condition they judged my CRV to be in (fair rather than the good I'd given it), and what most dealers paid on average for the 2007 Civic Hybrid.   

    I told him that these documents were available to anyone on the web, and they weren't really proof of what specific dealers would do for me.  The salesman said, "Well, it's up to you; if you want to save yourself the time of visiting all the other dealers, these are ballpark figures."   

    I thought about it, then reluctantly caved.  I knew I was just taking his word for it, and - worse - swerving off the only course that would give me certainty.  But what made me "roll-over" was not a simple calculation of how much time I could save by ending the process now.  It was all that went before: the smooth use of reciprocity ("We don't normally let our customers go on test-drives without taking a xerox of their driver's license" - I'd left mine on my desk that morning(!) - "but for you, we'll do it") arousing my sense that I owed them similar favors or niceties; eliciting prior agreement ("If my sales manager can prove blah blah blah, will you buy this car?") so that I didn't want to go back on my word; and subtle time-pressure ("We know your time is valuable, so we'll go over this paperwork fast"), so that I was reluctant to say, "Wait a minute; give me some time alone with this invoice, so I can check the figures."   

    What all this comes down to, is politeness.  It's hard to tell someone you want to go off to a corner to check their paperwork  - because it suggests you don't trust them.  And a strong sense of reciprocity, the conditioning that we should do unto others ... is deeply ingrained in us.  It's especially hard to suspend in those of us who only make big purchases like cars every ten years or so.  For people who buy and sell things every day, the rules of politeness are more manipulable, elastic.   

    So next time I buy anything whose price is negotiable, I'll review negotiation tools before I meet with salespeople. But meanwhile, I have a car whose performance and gas-savings are well worth a slight wistfulness about not shopping around.