First complaint about my new 08 Civic SI
Last Wednesday I discovered my first substantive complaint about my new Civic SI. I was on the way to the range, with my Glock 19 in a OWB Comp-tec holster on my hip at about 4 o’clock, when I climbed into the racing-inspired seats with their aggressive side bolstering, only to find the bolstering does not interact well with a holstered weapon. The bolstering pressed the holster firmly into my side and made for a most uncomfortable ride. A cross-country trip would be impossible with that particular holster.
This is, in the grand scheme of things, a minor complaint, as I’d need a cross-draw or more comfortable IWB holster for prolonged driving anyway, but it’s worth considering if you carry in a strong-side holster every day and find yourself doing alot of driving.
The "free" gas card scam
Last week I bought a new car. The dealer I purchased from offered a $200 “free gas” card as part of their counter to another dealer’s offer. It was obvious at the time the cards cost them less than face value hence their preference to use them in lieu of a cash discount, but I foolishly treated them as equivalent to their face cash value for the purposes of negotiation. Once I got home and researched the cards a bit, it became clear they are one of the many bits of sales trickery in the car salesman’s arsenal.
You can visit the FreeGasCentral website and see for yourself, but here are some notes:
The way the card works is thus: you activate the card and choose the brand of gasoline you’ll be buying (Exxon, Chevron, Wal-Mart, etc). You then save your receipts every time you buy gas from the specified brand (and ONLY that brand). At the end of every month, if you’ve bought $100 or more worth of gas, you mail in the original receipts, and 30-60 days later you get a $25 gift card good for gas or merchandise from the brand of supplier you enrolled with. If you haven’t bought $100 or more worth of gas, you forfeit the $25 gift card for that month. This keeps up for (x/25) months, where x is the face value of the gas card.
This sucks in the following ways:
- If you don’t spend at least $100/month in gas, you get nothing from this card. I ride my bike to work most days, and even if I drive it’s 8 miles round trip, so it’s a strange month when I fill up more than once, let alone to the tune of $100. Nowhere on the card is this disclosed.
- Even if you do normally spend $100/mo in gas, any month you fall under that amount you leave money on the table. You can’t just accrue it to the next month, or get an extra month to meet your quota
- You’re locked in to the brand of gas you chose. If signed up for Exxon, but you find you’re low on gas and there’s only a Chevron around, well that doesn’t count towards your quota
- It’s not clear when the gift cards expire, but knowing these charlatans it’s probably very soon, so you have to either spend them on fuel (which does NOT count towards your $100 quota for the month), buy merchandise (and, realistically, how often do you find yourself buying “merchandise” from a gas station?), or sell the cards at a significant discount off face value.
- If you forget to grab a receipt, or you don’t mail them in time, you’re fucked. It’s like those mail-in rebate scams at Best Buy, only more insidious.
So, next time you’re offered a free gas card like the above, don’t treat it as anywhere near equivalent to its face value in cash until you closely review the terms and are certain you can get the full value from the card. Or, better yet, go somewhere else where they won’t try to cheat you with stupid gimmicks.
Finally bought new car
Two days ago I finally pulled the trigger on my first new car. I’ve been driving my parents old 1992 Accord LX for nearly ten years now, so I kind of have it coming.
Photos
The photos are up at here. Here’s a preview:
Experience
As expected, the car buying experience was not pleasant. I started looking a couple of weeks ago, and contacted at least half a dozen area dealerships for quotes. The responses (and dollar amounts) varied wildly. Some quotes, and some comments, follow:
Richard Pham, Landmark Honda, Alexandria VA
Best price: $22,000 out the door.
This is the first dealership I heard back from, and also by far the most pushy and unpleasant. I’ve received roughly ten emails from Mr. Pham, most of them frenetic and pushy. Here are some samples:
In response to my request for a quote:
——-Original Message ——22000 out the door
2008 CIVIC SI 4 DOOR
BLACK
Yes, he hits ‘Reply’ and starts typing after the ‘Original Message’ line in his email client.
A few hours later:
come buy a CIVIC SI soon
We are going to run out soon
PHAM
As if I’m that fucking stupid. Four dealers in a 25 mile radius, dozens in a 50 miles radius, and I’m to believe I must buy from Richard ASAP or lose out? Does that ever work?
In response to my request for an itemized price quote, round 1:
Let me know if you can come in today
Nice. Very helpful. Queue a snippy email from me.
In response to my (second) request for an itemized price quote, so I can see bullshit little fees like ‘appearance package’ and such:
——-Original Message ——
K/ORD# 83221 08 CIVIC SI 4DR SDN MT IN-STOCK
$1,265.00 BODYSIZE S
EXT/INT CLR NIGHTHAWK BLACK #CYL MPG
SERIAL# 2HGFA55538H711628 LOCATION LIST PRICE 21310.00
Once again, he doesn’t know how to use email properly, and has given me a copy-paste dump from somewhere, which is most definitely not the itemized price quote I asked for.
The next day:
i have a white on too
I only have 2 black and White for this month
So unless you take one of them I cant help you
Well, I’m looking for Galaxy Gray, so I guess you can’t help me. Fine. End of story? NO.
Finally, I got an itemized price quote:
20,216
PLUS 670 DES
385 PROCESSING FEE
673-90 $ tags taxes
total out the door 22,000 va
He then comes back and matches another quote I got for about $600 less, but I ask if he has it in stock:
——-Original Message ——I CAN GET YOU ONE
WHEN CAN YOU COME IN TO SEE ME ?
Ha, now know he doesn’t have the color I want in stock. Having played this came with other dealers, I know quotes for in-stock cars are not honored for cars that must be ordered, though they are happy to let you believe that to get you to come in and test drive. Here’s what I got back when I challenged him on that:
——-Original Message ——When you come in you will pay wat I qouted you
What time ?
Pushy little fucker, isn’t he?
A couple days later (after I already bought my car):
Want to earn your business this week ,
When can you come see me .
We have more cars than any other dealers in the area and wont be undersold
I will beat anyones price you get this week just let me know what it would take to earn your business today
Waiting to hear back from you .
And then:
have you bought a car yet :
Upon hearing I’ve purchased a car already:
Last Night ?
Or Put a deposit ?
Richard Pham
As though he can somehow poach the sale, given that he doesn’t even have the color I want in stock and previously told me he couldn’t help me.
I’m still getting emails from this guy. He’d have to beat the best price by at least $1000 in order for me to give him my business after this level of pushy, unhelpful, and clumsy service.
Basky Nair, Fairfax Honda, Fairfax VA
Best quote:
$19810.00 sale price
$670 freight
$385 processing fee
$495 apperance package (waived after further negotiation)
$682.40 va tax
$49.50 tags
Total (after waived appearance package): $21597
Basky was not pushy, and came in lower than the other quotes I got, so I arranged to come visit him. It turned out he didn’t have Galaxy Gray in stock (not really his fault; I only decided on Galaxy Gray after I set up the appointment), and wanted a commitment to buy before he would order it. Um, no.
I also find the Fairfax Honda facilities unpleasant. They have a large TV playing with the volume cranked up, and each sales rep has a small table at which to deal, not a cube, so there’s absolutely no sense of privacy. Not a place that makes me want to part with my money.
Reginald Roark, Hendrick Honda, Woodbridge VA
Best quote: $23,657 out the door
Reggie had the galaxy gray in stock, but his out the door price was way too high, and he wouldn’t come down. He was helpful, responsive, and not pushy, so it’s a shame I couldn’t give him my business.
Jesse Torreyson, Hagerstown Honda, Hagerstown MD
Best quote: $21850 out the door
Jesse was helpful and was able to nearly match Basky’s quote, plus my father bought his Accord at Hagerstown ten years ago and had a good experience. Jesse had the gray in stock, so I made arrangements and drove all the way to Hagerstown (roughly 1.5 hours). When I got there, it turned out he thought I wanted the Coupe, not the Sedan. He didn’t have the Sedan in stock but his sales manager assured me they would order it for me and honor the quoted price, due to the cock-up.
I test-drove a red SI sedan here, which is what sold me on the car. Unfortunately, when I went to put a deposit down so they could order the color I wanted, the sales manager discovered that he would be charging me full MSRP for anything they have to order, and tried to tell me the SIs were flying off the lot at over MSRP with their cheapo bolt-on aero kits installed. Um, no, walk away.
Ginny Marshall, Herson’s Honda, Rockville MD
Best quote: $22094 out the door plus $200 “free” gas card (about which more later)
I ended up buying from Ginny. There was no pushy bullshit, she had the car she claimed to have, and she came down from her original quote to approach (but certainly not meet) Basky’s quote. I ended up deciding the galaxy gray color was worth $500 extra so I went with her.
I will note a couple of things:
First, the “free” gas card is a scam. I’ll dedicate a separate post to the details of the scam, but had I to do it over again I would not have treated the $200 card as equivalent to $200 cash, which I foolishly did during negotiations.
Second, as usual the finance manager tried to sell me all the bolt-ons like GAP insurance, lo-jack, extended warranty, etc. It’s a long list of shit they want you to buy. I scoffed at everything, but I scoffed extra hard at the $2100 they wanted for an extended warranty out to 6 years/60k miles. The finance manager asked me what I thought a reasonable price was, so I just blurted out “a grand”. She came back with $1600 using her “special employee discount”, and I giggled. Suddenly she became willing to sell it to me “at cost” (yeah, right!) for $1151. After reading over the warranty terms I figured that probably comes out in the wash, and you can get the purchase price refunded at the end of the warranty term if you haven’t used the warranty (and the warranty company is still solvent, though that’s implicit), so I went for it.
Maybe I’m a sucker for even paying that much, but the moral of the story is, the markup on those warranties is so high that they can discount the sale price nearly 50% down to what they will claim is “at cost” but almost surely is not, and still make money. So the real suckers are the guys that say “I’ll take it” to the initial $2100 offer.
Third, they were (surprisingly) able to beat USAA and came back with 5.24% APR financing for 36 months. I offered to put down $4k, and the APR came down to 4.99%. I could’ve paid for the car in cash, but I was advised by my father that having and paying off a car loan could bolster my credit history (which to this point consists entirely of revolving credit accounts), so I figured at that interest rate why not.
I was interested to note that the fine print on the Honda financing contract prohibits alterations to the vehicle without the written permission of the holder of the loan, and requires notification of the holder of the loan if the car is moved out of your state of residence for more than 30 days. I pushed back on this provision and was assured by the finance manager that it only applies to leases, not outright purchases, and yet when I suggested I scratch it out she said it would be rejected. She then called in another sales guy who was rather horrified as he himself had tinted the windows in his Honda-financed car, surely an alteration if ever there was one.
Obviously this language is an ass-covering to help consolidate the legal power of the lender over the lendee. I dont’ really care since I’m not going to mod the car, but it was interesting that 1) I was the first person to actually raise an issue with this language 2) I was told it didn’t apply to me 3) I was told I could not scratch it out notwithstanding 2.
Read the fine print people. That goes double on the extended warranty.
Conclusion
Buying a new car is a battle. You, the good guy, are trying to get a good car at a fair price, with options and incentives that work the way they are represented to work without delving into the fine print and legalese. Car salesmen, the bad guys, are trying to maximize profit. Pay no attention to the sale price, discounts, incentives, etc. The only thing that matters is the out-the-door price. Get an email breakdown of the out-the-door price BEFORE you set foot anywhere, bring the printout with you, and don’t hesitate to show it to competing dealers who are trying to give you the dick-around.
In particular, DO NOT EVER pay for the “appearance package”. Do not let them back off from an out-the-door quote. No matter how badly you want the car, and how sick you are of the process, if you do not walk out the moment they start the bait-and-switch, you lose and they win.
Also be sure you know ahead of time about the latest scam tricks. I wish I’d read about the “free” gas card scam before I went shopping, as I could’ve saved a couple hundred more dollars.
All that said, I’m happy to have my new car, and I paid under MSRP so I at least know there are people out there who paid more than me for the same car.
UPDATE: My write-up on the “free” gas card scam is here
Annoyances in .NET XML libraries
At work I’m building a simple tool to populate a FogBugz wiki page with build information. One of the things this tool needs to do is pull the XHTML contents of a wiki page, parse it (as XML), and take action on the resulting document tree. Initially I expected this to be stupid-easy, as XHTML is just XML, right?
Au contrare!
Problem 1: XHTML is NOT just XML
The first problem is XHTML documents likely contain entity references like and whatnot. These entity references aren’t XML entities, they’re XHTML entities, so you must load the XHTML DTD in order to resolve them. Trouble is, this means there must be a proper XHTML DOCTYPE directive in your XHTML (which there isn’t in my case since I’m using fragments).
Once a valid DOCTYPE directive is added to the XHTML, now .NET will download the full DTD from W3 just to parse a little XHTML fragment. Not acceptable. So, I had to download the XHTML strict DTD, and the three dependent DTDs containing entity definitions, and paste them together to create one big DTD with all the XHTML entities inline. I then added that file to my project as an embedded resource, and ripped off this code to write an HtmlResolver subclass of XmlUriResolver to intercept requests for the XHTML DTDs, and instead pull my jumbo DTD out of a resource stream and return that.
Problem 2: Automatic XHTML namespace
The second problem cropped up when I tried to issue an XPath query for all the h1 elements in my markup. For some reason, the call to SelectNodes was always returning zero matches, even though I know the XHTML contained a multitude of h1 elements. The cause became clear when I looked at the InnerXml property of my XmlDocument object. Something was adding a xmlns:namespace attribute to the html element I was generating for the root of my document tree, even though the string from which the XmlDocument was generated never explicitly specified a namespace. Since I was issuing an XPath query for h1 elements in the global namespace, and the parser put all the elements in the html namespace, it was silently skipping all my h1 elements!
The fix was to replace html as my root node with something not in the XHTML DTD, like wikipage. Still, that should not happen!
Idea for .NET 4.0: XHTML support, built in!
Bullshit admin privs problem with Picasa/Google Earth integration
I’m trying to geotag the photos from my brother’s wedding using a combination of Picasa and Google Earth. I’ve done this before many times but now I do all my work from a non-admin account under Windows XP, and I’m running into a problem.
When I click the Tools | GeoTag | Geotag in Google Earth menu item, for some reason MSI is launched trying to find the Google Earth.msi in a temp directory in the admin user’s Documents and Settings folder, which obviously my non-admin account doesn’t have the privs to read. The resulting dialog box says:
The feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that in unavailable.
Click OK to try again, or choose an alternate path to a folder containing the installation package ‘Google Earth.msi’ in the box below.
Of course, the box below contains only the path into the admin’s profile folder, and there’s no option to change it or browse for an alternative. If I click cancel, the box reappears.
I’m running the latest Google Earth and Picasa.
Apparently, I’m not alone. Way back in March, someone reported this same problem, and apparently the PhD’s over at the Googleplex are too busy counting their options to actually fix what is a very basic problem.
I will NOT run as admin to accommodate some shitty admin privs requirement in Google Earth, even if it means I can’t geotag my photos. But I WILL bitch about it at length. WTF, Google? Do you not test this stuff as a non-admin user? Is there some other more subtle cause which I’m not seeing?
Seth is Married
Last Monday, 4 August, my little brother Seth was married, and I gained a new sister, Hailey Edwards Nelson.
The photos are in the process of uploading. Find them here.
The wedding itself was great, and my family turned it into a mini-reunion. It was great seeing all my sibs in one place, and Seattle was nice (although the politics and the traffic ensure I’d never live there). I still can’t believe one of my siblings is married. We really are getting older!