wednesday night i drove a shiny new honda odyssey home. it started out with 5 miles on the odometer and ended up with 30 by the time i backed it into the garage. i know that the car is for marty and most would think that she would have been jonsin' to drive it but she was afraid of wrecking it pulling onto the busy road in front of the dealership and how sucky would that be. so i got the honors of driving my/marty's/our first brand new automobile off the lot.

now, how marty got this car is an interesting story. she researches everything to death and in her studies she learned of this technique of purchasing a car over the internet. she sent an email to every honda dealer within 100 miles and basically said, i'm buying a car, this car, this week and am looking for who will give me the best deal. she was worried that no one would respond for a number of unforeseen reasons. well she worried for naught because they not only responded but they were climbing over one another to get her in their showroom. one guy offered this. the next guy offered this plus this. they ratted one another out on available deals going on this month until one guy ultimately said, i'll beat any offer you get. well all right then.

now unfortunately our good fortune hit a wall. and that wall was we were looking to purchase the most sought after car of this type on the market. additionally it is year end so the deals were there. our ultimate challenge was finding someone who could keep a 2003 odyssey on their lot for more than three hours let alone finding a salesman who will come down on their price. so in the end we got partially screwed and had to buy one that was on a tractor trailer en route. when cars are selling in this manner, it's hard to get dealers to budge. why the hell would they. but this scenario aside, the internet deal has legs, as the motley fool claims, and if you're in the market, i'd recommend considering such a strategy in your process.