Originally Posted by gurneyeagle

Hi all, hope your weekend is going well.

It's been a busy day of car shopping for mrs. gurney. First, we had a killer breakfast at a local restaurant called Harry's.

After breakfast, we hit the Mazda dealer first to test drive a CX-5. Both of us were surprised with how much we liked the car. It was tight, roomy enough for us, looked good. Biggest gripe was the dealer. We had to complete a customer bio, provide drivers licenses, and endure a speach on what the car could do. Oh, and the salesman I made the appointment with was busy with someone else, so we got pushed off to another salesman. We followed the exact route he wanted to go, and the whole time I had the feeling the guy didn't trust us. When we got back, we were grilled by the sales manager as to why we should buy the car today. Jeez.

Next, we were off the the Honda dealership to test drive the CR-V. If there was ever an example of how to win over a customer, these guys wrote the book. The guy was paged, showed-up in less than a minute, and the FIRST thing he did was introduce himself and thank us for coming out today.

He then led us over to a CR-V in the showroom, and asked us to wait while he pulled-out a CR-V to test drive in the exact color combo we wanted. He pulled the car around and we jumped in. He said take it where ever we wanted. No time limit, no set route. After the drive, he said let him know what we decided,and if the CR-V was our choice, he'd start looking for exactly what we wanted when we were ready to deal. This was also the only dealer that provided a killer price over the internet.

The Honda dealer and the Mazda dealer are owned by the same people.

We then headed over to the Acura dealer. As requested, we called and let the salesman know we were headed over to test drive the RDX and gave him the time we'd be there.

We rolled in within five minutes of the time stated, and proceeded to wait 20 minutes because no one could find the guy. At this point the sales manager comes over and says he'll personally go look for the guy. Ten minutes later, I go up to another salesman, and tell him all I want to do is test drive an RDX, and that we've been waiting for 30 minutes for our salesman.

The guy apologizes, walks into his office, and comes out with the keys to an RDX demo. He hands the keys to me, and says "go enjoy". He told me to take the car for as long as I needed. He didn't even come with us! When we got back, it took another ten minutes to find someone to give the keys back to.

Looks like mrs. gurney wants the CR-V which costs about $11k less than RDX. I want the RDX, but it's her car. I guess I shouldn't complain.

Tomorrow is the 30+ car cruise to Galveston. It should be a blast!