Price New guy wants to know if he's getting a decent price :)

[sniperpenguin]

Howdy all, another User (Golly) told me this place existed and would probably be a good place to get some advice on my Civic purchase! (apologies for length!)

Im looking to get:
2.2Tdi Type S GT (Nighthawk)
Image Pack
Mudguards
Bass Kit
Footwell lighting
8-Disc changer

Total MRP is 20220, Im playing 3 dealers off against each other (would be 4, but my local dealer is arrogant beyond belief - so Im off to cheshire/warrington!). Lowest offer I've got so far is £19320 + 20% off 1st three years servicing (Important for me- would rather it thrown in, but heck). so my questions are:

1. Is this a decent offer?
2. Anyone had experience with the dealers in question? (Two Mills Honda, Saunders Honda, and Lookers Honda (oh the arrogant gits are Pentraeth Honda, Llandudno))
3. Is are there any "essential" extras Im missing, or pointless upgrades (Ive heard something about the rear spoiler being pointless on Nighthawk black)?

Apologies for the newb questions, and hello again!

[golly]

Hi there

Glad you found the forum...no doubt there will be some help arriving for you shortly...might be worth doing a search through the buying part of the forum as well.

Sounds a wicked car!

[MC Hammer]

With all those extras the price does seem a bit high (considering it's a non Sat Nav car). It is a good discount though and I wouldn't expect too much more. The servicing discount would tie you to that dealer for a while too.
Personally I'd get the Sat Nav option, before some of the parts you list. It does have it's moments but as you also get HFT and voice control a worthy option.

[Kerry]

Yo Sniperpenguin

Still waiting for my civic1 due March 1st. Got the 2.2 ctdi EX in NHB, with leather upholstery, glass roof, 5 year honda happness full set of mats and parking sensors for £19300.
The servicing agreement was very important to me and I fought hard to get it. After a few words with the manager about the sales staff telling a few porkies
Regards
Kerry

[czechplastik]

The extras really are expensive, You do seem to be getting fairly good discount though I think Kerry has a better deal!

[Trevor]

Don,t know if this is any good to you, but picking up 1.8 ES ishift on Saturday, my dealer eventually knocked off £2700 from the list price of the car!! How this happened was that I was firstly given £1500 discount on the brand new car, we started the boxing match on my Audi A4 trade in, the computer read out the dealer gave me suggested a £1200 difference in what I wanted for my car and what they were prepared to give me, they evenntually were prepared to split the difference 50/50, I put my coat on to walk out and said that's no good, and the deal was done. My invoice shows £2700 discount off the new price, the trade in price of the A4 represents the first figure they gave me.

[paulosilva76]

Sorry my moan... i get sick when i see those prices... mine was more than 23000 £, Executive version, i was able to put in HFT and parking sensor for no extra cost. I would definitively taken yours. Do you really need the 8-Disk Charger ? the Headunit has mp3/wma capability. The Bass Works don't seem to live by it expectations for it´s price. Have you heard it to decide for yourself ?

[sniperpenguin]

Thanks for all the replies Keep them coming (please)

Personally I'd get the Sat Nav option, before some of the parts you list. It does have it's moments but as you also get HFT and voice control a worthy option.

I thought about this, but I'm not going to pay £1400 for a built-in TomTom that may never update / I cant change!, plus from talking to (all) the dealers, it doesnt really add to the resale value of the car.

The extras really are expensive, You do seem to be getting fairly good discount though I think Kerry has a better deal!

I agree, but I really want the 3-Door version!

Do you really need the 8-Disk Charger ? the Headunit has mp3/wma capability. The Bass Works don't seem to live by it expectations for it´s price. Have you heard it to decide for yourself ?

8-Disc changer wasnt my choice (missus!) but the bass works comment is interesting (and just the type of thing I needed to hear). I went for it as a value thing, since I was going for the coaxial / twin cone / speaker ring upgrades anyway.

Anyone else had a poor experience with the Bass kit? Again, thanks for all the info!

[generationgav]

Originally Posted by sniperpenguin

8-Disc changer wasnt my choice (missus!) but the bass works comment is interesting (and just the type of thing I needed to hear). I went for it as a value thing, since I was going for the coaxial / twin cone / speaker ring upgrades anyway.

Anyone else had a poor experience with the Bass kit? Again, thanks for all the info!

I personally haven't had them; but quite a few people think the bassworks kit is poor; and the coaxil/twincone for that matter.
I would advise to save the money and to get infinities installed, even if you have to pay an ICE guy to do it. However it's easy to do yourself.
As far as the 8 CD changer, just rip 8CD's onto one mp3 CD and it's even better!

[panasony]

Originally Posted by sniperpenguin

Howdy all, another User (Golly) told me this place existed and would probably be a good place to get some advice on my Civic purchase! (apologies for length!)

Im looking to get:
2.2Tdi Type S GT (Nighthawk)
Image Pack
Mudguards
Bass Kit
Footwell lighting
8-Disc changer

Total MRP is 20220, Im playing 3 dealers off against each other (would be 4, but my local dealer is arrogant beyond belief - so Im off to cheshire/warrington!). Lowest offer I've got so far is £19320 + 20% off 1st three years servicing (Important for me- would rather it thrown in, but heck). so my questions are:

1. Is this a decent offer?
2. Anyone had experience with the dealers in question? (Two Mills Honda, Saunders Honda, and Lookers Honda (oh the arrogant gits are Pentraeth Honda, Llandudno))
3. Is are there any "essential" extras Im missing, or pointless upgrades (Ive heard something about the rear spoiler being pointless on Nighthawk black)?

Apologies for the newb questions, and hello again!

Do what ive done wait a year then get a second hand one for a much cheaper price , ok it would have done a few or more thousand miles but by doing so any niggles would have been sorted out plus the engine has had a few thousand miles put throught it so the mpg will be better plus you save a few thousand pounds too.

I have just purchased a 2.2 cdti ex silver with parking sensors and a spare wheel for 14250 ok it has done 16000 miles but with a diesil engine like hondas thats nothing really

[sniperpenguin]

Do what ive done wait a year then get a second hand one for a much cheaper price

If Im going to spend that much on a car, it would be new or at the very most - ex-demo. Otherwise, you've no idea what those first 6/12,000 miles were like. At least in a dealership it wouldve been properly maintained.

[NickG]

I have NOT used the Civic's sat nav, but in my experience, all the OTHER integrated sat nav kits I've seen are a total RIP OFF.

Most of them aren't as nice to use as a TomTom, you can't take them out of the car (could be regarded as an advantage) which means you can't use them in another car, while walking around, or while on holiday (where I find TomTom invaluable!) and the prices of them are just RIDICULOUS. They also seem to be out of date before you even buy them and rarely get updated. The TomTom One is excellent for under £200. You can get the top of the range TomTom 910 for less than £400 and this has maps of pretty much the entire 1st world and is a far better buy than the intregrated kit at less than quarter of the price. I don't see why anyone needs voice control. You can type in a postcode in about 5 seconds and then you don't need to control it anymore for the rest of the journey.

The HFT (hands free telephone) kit doesn't seem to be very good quality and doesn't work with all phones. It's quite hard making yourself understood using the HFT option due to the poor microphone and there is lots of background noise. For one tenth the price you can get a decent bluetooth earpiece with greatly improved quality at both ends of the line - should be enough for most people unless you use your phone on most car journeys. I personally don't think anyone should use the phone while driving at all - hands free or not. Read the article linked to in my sig.

The blue footwell lighting is a total rip off as well. It consists of two very dim 5mm LEDs which you can barely see. £100 per LED is over 100 times the market rate of a standard LED and there's nothing special about the ones you get from Honda. Save your money and fit an after market blue lighting kit which will cost a fraction of the price and will look much better. Only got it because it came with an ex-demo car but I certainly wouldn't pay for it.

I would get HID xenon lights, but I guess these probably come with the Type S.

In fact I probably wouldn't get the Type-S anyway because it doesn't look much different to the standard 4 door car and the doors are so huge it's almost impossible to get out of the car in most normal parking spaces

Oh and I got Nighthawk black and now regret it. It's impossible to keep it clean and it only looked good before I'd driven it. Now it looks dirty all the time despite washing it weekly. I wish I'd gone for Cosmic Grey...

Other than that - it all sounds good

[Charles_Harding]

I love the Sat Nav in Millie.

Don't forget its locked into the radio network to keep you up to date with jams etc.

Yes, it's cheaper to have a Tom Tom, but part of the pleasure of this machine is that it adds to the 'Spaceship' feeling being all integrated and that.

The screen also gives you all the reqd info on your cds & fm stations as well.

"Do unto others before they do unto you!"

Charles H.

[panasony]

And just to add to that , you can update the built in sat nav via the dvd player in the glove box, and you dont have to wait for the sat nav to pick up satalites ,ok you can take it with you but with all these new phones comming out with built in gps who needs to

[NickG]

Originally Posted by panasony

And just to add to that , you can update the built in sat nav via the dvd player in the glove box, and you dont have to wait for the sat nav to pick up satalites ,ok you can take it with you but with all these new phones comming out with built in gps who needs to

Other posters are saying that no DVDs have been released as far as they know. How many new DVDs have you been sent then? Are they free?

Nick...

[Charles_Harding]

Originally Posted by NickG

Are they free?
...

If they are free I bet they'll charge £79 p&p!

How often do they build new roads round your way to make an update worth getting anyway?

"Why is it called a 'building' when it has already been built?"

Charles H.

[NickG]

Originally Posted by Charles_Harding

How often do they build new roads round your way to make an update worth getting anyway?

A colleagues RX-8 sat nav system (£2000) doesn't even have my own road in it and it was built 8 years ago. It doesn't have the M62 and almost the entire one way system near where I work has been reversed since the map data was collected. It's YEARS out of date and the car was purchased only last year. There is little money in the map updates, so most manufactures tend not to bother updating them. It doesn't even have a touch screen, so entering a postcode takes about 2 minutes using some silly mini joystick thing. I've yet to see an integrated system that's worth having over a £199 TomTom. Perhaps the Civic's is better.

[Charles_Harding]

Originally Posted by NickG

Perhaps the Civic's is better.

If your facts are correct I can understand your frustration.

When you ask your Civic to 'Go Home'

It replies "Where's that then?"

You can't really argue value when £200 for a Tom Tom is so cheap.......mind you so are Kias!

"Why is there only one 'Monopolies Commision?"

Charles H.

[pjelsworth]

Originally Posted by sniperpenguin

Thanks for all the replies Keep them coming (please)


I thought about this, but I'm not going to pay £1400 for a built-in TomTom that may never update / I cant change!, plus from talking to (all) the dealers, it doesnt really add to the resale value of the car.


I agree, but I really want the 3-Door version!


8-Disc changer wasnt my choice (missus!) but the bass works comment is interesting (and just the type of thing I needed to hear). I went for it as a value thing, since I was going for the coaxial / twin cone / speaker ring upgrades anyway.

Anyone else had a poor experience with the Bass kit? Again, thanks for all the info!

I know a lot is personal taste, but since you are asking for opinions, here is my 2 cents worth
- Disagree about the Sat Nav - I would much rather have a built in one as it can't be nicked and the screen is much bigger, plus it just looks better than sticking one somewhere else. If I'm paying £20k for a car, I don't want other bits stuck around the cabin
- Again, the HFT is a much neater and integrated solution included in the extra price
- The Sat Nav screen is great for also displaying the tracks and folders on your CD's
- I never bothered with the Bass kit due to the price, and I get the impression from this forum that there are much better and cheaper DIY options
- I see very little need for the multi-CD when you can make up MP3 CD's that hold far more tracks and are much easier to navigate. It is also very expensive

Anyway, the choice is yours at the end of the day

[sniperpenguin]

- Disagree about the Sat Nav - I would much rather have a built in one as it can't be nicked and the screen is much bigger, plus it just looks better than sticking one somewhere else. If I'm paying £20k for a car, I don't want other bits stuck around the cabin

Totally agree However, for £1,400 I would expect it to:
A: Add £500 to the resale value of the car minimum
B: Auto-update
C: Be touch-screen
D: Make Tea (well, maybe not)

- I see very little need for the multi-CD when you can make up MP3 CD's that hold far more tracks and are much easier to navigate. It is also very expensive

Again, very valid point that Im beginning to talk to the fiancee about. It depends HOW easy it is to navigate the tracks on the MP3 CD, and whether this is reliant on having the sat-nav (for the screen)

So looking back at this, I could perhaps drop the Bass kit (but add the rings) + CD Changer. Anything essential from my build you think Im missing?