We were lucky that our dealer had one in stock that was being prepped for delivery later that day. They let us take a short drive in it.

Of course, you can always see if you find a nice person on here in your area that will take you for a spin.

 

MWAMAC,

Welcome to the club. We had to do the same thing, but luckily my wife was able to sit in a customer's car who had not picked theirs up yet. She has long legs and could not fit in the Prius or most other Toyota vehicles for that matter. When I realized it was a 6 week waiting period at my local dealer, I started to call around and find out who had the shortest waiting period. That is where I got extremely lucky!!! Every dealer I called in Baltimore had a 4-6 week wait, but one Honda dealer got three in the week before and one was left. I gave him the credit card over the phone and bought the car sight unseen. I had never even seen the color, but it turned out amazing as we liked it better than the other cars we saw. It was like we were destined to own this exact vehicle. So do it and feel good about it. You can always back out of it when the car arrives and you test drive it, as there will be a mad stampede to buy that car if you don't like it!

 

Relax.

It's a Honda.

 

No you are not crazy. I bought my HCH in 2004 through my Credit Union auto buying service and it was delivered to my driveway 3 days later - did the paperwork in my kitchen table and that's it.

Then last year, I bought a Toyota Prius for my wife the same way - Credit Union buying service - took them 3 weeks to get the car - all the dealerships around the SF Bay area said it's a 3 months wait.. so I got the Prius again sight unseen and no test drive.

I love the credit union buying service since I hate the games dealership and car salesman play - my brother was a car saleman for 5 years (Toyota, Honda, Infinity, Volvo and Jaguars) and so I'm quite educated on all the tricks of the trade -and still can't get to get myself to go to a dealership to look at, test drive much less buy a car.

 

Dave (cherokee180c),

So what color did you end up with?

To be honest, I wasn't real picky about the exterior color. I just didn't like the blue interior. Black or Gray would have been nice, just wasn't too fond of the blue. One of the colors I liked the most was the Mag. Pearl but it has the blue interior, so I didn't want that. I ended up with the Galaxy Gray and I think that I will really like it. I know that the Ivory will probably show some dirt over time, but that is okay. Not many people getting in and out of the car other than myself so I'll just take care of it.

-Morgan

 

I left my name with several dealerships and waited until a test vechile was available before I made my purchase. I wanted to make sure that performance and the cargo hauling ability met my needs (trunk had to be large enough to carry 2 sets of golf clubs). I wound up waiting approximately a month before I got to test drive the HCH II. I would not say you are crazy or irratiional. However, I would never purchase anything sight unseen, but thta's just the way I am. Fortunately for me, the demand in central PA isn't very high (unlike the west coast). I was able to order the car I wanted, with the options I wanted for $1000 below MSRP. I was sold on the car immediately after the test drive.

 

I ended up with my first choice - silver/blue with tan interior. The way the buying service works is I have to the all options and colors as 1st 2nd or 3rd choice. They try to locate a model to match the 1st choice and if not the 2nd etc. Then they call me to to tell me what they can get and ask if I want it - if not, I'll have to wait, and they try again etc.

 

Yeah, I'm not really looking for power. For work I drive from place to place, I'm a Speech Therapist and I travel to see my kids either in their home or daycare. Each place is pretty close to one another, but it starts adding up after a while. I only get compensated for the gas money if I travel more than 50 miles between sites and that never happens. I do however put a little over 50 miles on it in a day when you include everything (miles to work, lunch, and home).

I do mostly light driving too. Not a whole lot of highway during work. But does the car hold up pretty well when traveling highway? Or does it struggle to maintain the 65-70 mph range?

-Morgan

 

The car is virtually like any other Civic on the highway (if you want it to be). 90MPH comes easy if you are generous with the throttle.... your MPG will dip very quickly if you drive like that though.

Generally speaking, I drive it so gently that sometimes it feels underpowered. However, if I dip into that throttle heavily, that feeling goes away quickly