Can a geek girl buy her own car without getting screwed?
I felt the same way the first time I went to buy a new car on my own (I’m a girl, it was a Civic too). I knew exactly the car I wanted, and I knew from research what I should expect to pay and what interest rate I should expect to get for the loan. It was surprisingly easy. I told them what I wanted, and they tried to say they couldn’t give me the car on my terms, at which point I just casually said, “Well, that’s fine, I’ll try Honda of [nearby town], have a nice day.” They ended up giving me the car at about a hundred dollars more than I wanted to pay, but I still got a very fair deal. The dealer can only screw with you so much – if you know what you want and on what terms, you can just calmly leave if they can’t give you what you want, or even if you don’t like their attitude. And you can do that at *any* time in the process – I don’t care if they spend two hours with you and at the last minute they try to backtrack, you can still walk away and go to any one of a number of dealershi