Hello,

Just wondering if anyone is from Northern California?

If so please list where you are from.

If not list where you are from.

Hope to hear from ya.:p

Antioch.....12 miles from you! We grew up in Concord, a VERY long time ago!:D

There are two of us now...I guess not too many people here are from Nor Cal.

It is nice to know I am not alone. :blush:

This seems to be a wide spread forum....people from all over the place!

It's pretty rare to see someone form our stomping grounds. On many places (boards) people just say "SF, bay area".

We went to Mt. Diablo ages ago. Moved away for the USAF for a few years, then came back. Moved out here to Antioch in '81 & have been here since. :)

Did you buy your Accord new? If so, which dealer? We bought this one at Concord Honda. VERY happy with them!!:yes:

Originally posted by princess
This seems to be a wide spread forum....people from all over the place!

It's pretty rare to see someone form our stomping grounds. On many places (boards) people just say "SF, bay area".

We went to Mt. Diablo ages ago. Moved away for the USAF for a few years, then came back. Moved out here to Antioch in '81 & have been here since. :)

Did you buy your Accord new? If so, which dealer? We bought this one at Concord Honda. VERY happy with them!!:yes:

Yea, I know what you mean, moved to Walnut Creek in 1979, then to Concord in 1988, and moved out of CA to Phoenix in 1997, then to Virginia Beach, VA in 1998, then back to Concord in 2000, Moved to VA because of the Navy.

Yes, I bought mine from Concord Honda too!! I was very pleased with them in whole.

Hope to see you around!

Julie =)

Most of my family migrated to PHX in the late 70's. The prince's went to VA & MD in the 90's.

Other than the AF time, I've live in CA my whole life.... plan to stay here.

We'd bought the other recent new Hondas at Winter & down in Corona. Concord was the best. That's where we'll go next time!

Daly City, CA

Hey, now we have three people from the bay area.

Keep it going. Who else is from Nor Cal?

I wish I would.... :(

Damn winter..... it sucks.....:bawling:

It's been a bit chippy here too! I don't think we quite hit 70 degrees today!:rolleyes:

HI,
I am looking for a 04 ex v6 sedan here in northern CA. I was considering the new TL, but after driving both it is hard to justify an additional 7-9K. I thought they were both very nice cars.

Where can you find the best Price and dealer experience?

Welcome to the board!

Concord Honda! Salesman named Sal. They gave me a great trade for my '02 EXV6 when I bought my '03 EXV6 w/ nav. A neighbor just had a a great experience there with a salesman named "mo" also.

I was looking for a specific model & color. They found one down south & trucked it up for me.

I've heard negitive comments about Winter in Pittsburg & Walnut Creek Honda. WCH has had some happy customers, but I've heard more bad than good lately. Lodi Honda was OK on price 2 years ago, but lazy about finding something special. I've heard good things about Dublin Honda in the past, but some bad in the past year with Pilot buyers. Livermore is normally higher priced & snobby. Stockton was slow at returning calls & emails, when I was shopping. Their prices seemed fine. I've heard mostly good about the dealer in Fairfeild.

Hope this is some help!:)

Good Luck! Shop around. They can give quotes on the computer & over the phone. If you're trading in, do your homework. If you want a certain color you can find it with a little work.

I pitch in with negative experiences with Grace Honda in San Bruno and also Honda of Serramonte. They both suck, I heard Honda of Concord (?? right name?) was good. My dad likes Honda of San Leandro and Honda of El Cerrito.

I emailed about a dozen dealers here in No. CA. I have responses from most of them.
Has anyone heard anything about Hayward? San leandro gave me my second best price at $200 under invoice. Hayward came in lower than that. I will post actual prices and experience after I am finished.
I this is better than I expected.

I haven't dealt with San Leandro or Hayward myself. As a general rule, the ones that are "SONIC" owned are having a better sales reputation than the ones that aren't. If they are sonic, it would be obvious online. ( that doesn't count for service.... maybe later....) Good luck!

:)

Honda of Serramonte is Sonic owned and they suck. Autobahn Motors (Mercedes Dealer) in Belmont is also Sonic owned...I don't like them either.

I say as a general rule. I've heard more good than bad. Of course, it's also going to depend on the individual sales person you get.

Buying cars from those dealers are fine but after that the service sucks. Initially, at Honda of Serramonte, after we made a deal on the price, they typed a higher price on the contract. Luckily it was caught before the papers were signed but it still leaves a bad impression of them on my mind. One of the salesmen there was a complete jerk. I asked for a demonstration of the folding rear seat in the Odyssey and he said "show me the money and I'll show you the seat." WTF? But luckily they're not all like that, and that guy was fired. If you do wanna shop there, the guy we dealt with was named Jesus and was pretty nice. When my friend brought her Accord in for the first 7500 mile service, they gave it back to her with oil on the block...which of course burned away and started smoking badly.

As for Autobahn Motors, the SA's there are dumb and the mechanics are bratty little jackasses. When I brought my moms ML320 in there for service, it came back after I heard the guy gun it from a cold start, the seat was all the way forward, and the equalizer was messed with not to mention that it was on full blast on a rap station. If they want music they can at least give it back to me the way I brought it in. When he parked it he didn't even bother to set the parking brake. I asked to do something with the navigation screen....and she asked me to show her what I was talking about. We walked up to a new ML350 in the showroom and she went "wow these things are cheap." What the hell...did you just imply that I'm poor?! BLAH

I don't mean to be mean or discredit you princess, just sharing personal experience and venting a bit. Honda of Serramonte is a "five star" dealer or something like that as rated by Honda so I mean they must be doing something right.

BB650,

I don't feel discredited! Feel free to disagree....I do!

People NEED to know what the experiences are in order to help make decisions about where to buy or what to look out for. I did mention the sales was what had the better rep. I don't know about the service dept. There's been so much rearranging with the tech's I know that I don't know where most of them are right now. Every dealer is going to have good & bad tech's in their service dept. The difference in some is whether or not the management accepts the bad as policy. One thing we can ALL do is whenever you have anything, even warranty work, done at a dealer FILL OUT THE CARD! Whether your experince is good or bad, no changes can be made if the Corp. isn't aware of it! Right now it's the only way for HONDA to know how their individual dealers are doing!

If a salesman had made a comment about money when I was merely asking for a demo on a feature I'd loudly ask for another salesperson.

Most of the time the oil is changed by someone that's lower than an apprentice. "Lube Tech". The dealer still needs to know when they mess up!

The rules have always been not to change the radio station in the cars in for work! That should have been reported to the manager. There's no reason to put up with that stuff.

I really feel for everyone trying to find good service anymore!! My mom brings her Ody to us from NV for anything accept an oil change! She's afraid!! I understand. That's one reason these forums are so important. Get the info out. Then we can all find out which shops to steer clear of!:)

The deal from Roseville automall:
23,168.94 car price Plus $75 wheel and tire protection, $45 doc fee, $5 tire fee, $1717.56 tax, $201 license. Total $25212.50 financed at 2.9% for 48 months. Car had 13.5 miles on it and ready for delivery.
My strategy:
Used Edmunds to select three different cars to test drive. Went to the local dealer with my wife and we drove and picked out the exact make, model and color we wanted. Emailed 10 dealers within 90 min drive for price quotes. Took two lowest quotes and emailed two new dealers with large inventories. The dealer I bought from had 5 of my first color choice and 4 of my second color choice so they were than willing to go $300 under cost to move inventory (that is their story).
The delivery process was slow but great. Soft sell on extended warranty stuff. Overall a great experience. Jason and Yosi(sp?) were fabulous. Definately recommend.

Originally posted by dbehrensmdx
The deal from Roseville automall:
23,168.94 car price Plus $75 wheel and tire protection, $45 doc fee, $5 tire fee, $1717.56 tax, $201 license. Total $25212.50 financed at 2.9% for 48 months. Car had 13.5 miles on it and ready for delivery.
My strategy:
Used Edmunds to select three different cars to test drive. Went to the local dealer with my wife and we drove and picked out the exact make, model and color we wanted. Emailed 10 dealers within 90 min drive for price quotes. Took two lowest quotes and emailed two new dealers with large inventories. The dealer I bought from had 5 of my first color choice and 4 of my second color choice so they were than willing to go $300 under cost to move inventory (that is their story).
The delivery process was slow but great. Soft sell on extended warranty stuff. Overall a great experience. Jason and Yosi(sp?) were fabulous. Definately recommend.

How long did it take you from the moment you got in to the moment you drove out? I'm going to email them because my friend is looking for a car. I want them to have everything ready when we get there because we're going from SF (if we go), can't afford to leave right when they close.

I noticed that some dealers I contacted boasted 1 hr purchase time frames, I wish we had gone to one of those dealers. We walked into the showroom at 9am and sales does not open until 930. So with no one infront of us we had all papers signed and ready to go at 10:45. Add another 30 min actually take delivery and go over all of the features of the car.
It helps if you have all of your paperwork done over the phone because then they can enter all of that information before you arrive. We still had to enter some information on the credit application which they had to then reenter into the computer.
I went over to Carmax and sold my old car after we signed the final paperwork at 10:45. I was unhappy with the coordination and timing of the paperwork because I could have gone to Carmax between 9-10:45 but they kept telling me "If I leave it will stop the process" and "It will only be 5 more minutes". For 45 minutes I checked with them every 10 minutes and they said it will be 5 more minutes the manager is just printing out the paperwork. Again, it was not that they took over 2 hours to deliver the car, it was they kept misleading me about how much time was left. My theory is they want to keep you waiting for so long that when you get to the Finance office you will sign anything they put in front of you. This is when they hit you up for extended warranty stuff. When I got my MDX it took less than an hour, and I did more paperwork.
Ask for internet manager Jason and tell him dennis Behrens sent you. For comparison, Hayward honda offered the second best price and Anderson honda offers to beat any written internet deal by a $100.
Good luck. :D