i did a test drive in the honda insight 2009

I agree. What will make or break the new Insight is how badly Honda fumbles it

 

No, in how Honda dealerships handle the new Insight. The old Insight, a car I very much considered purchasing, I was completely turned off by how the two dealerships I went to handled my request

"Oh, you don't want that car"

"A Civic is a much better buy"

"We've never brought one in, and don't want to train our mechanics to work on just one car"

and other lovely little lines of reasoning

 

No dealers around here kept the original Insight around. I wanted to look and drive that car but no dealer around here ever had it. I think Honda is going to do a huge leaps with future Insights to better it.

 

Totally true. Toyota dealers did the very same thing with the Corolla and Camry and actively discouraged people from going with the Prius because frankly, they would prefer the sale of a Camry today instead of waiting for the payment for weeks until your Prius arrived.

But things have changed a fair bit. On one hand, we been working with the dealers in an attempt to "educate" them and on the other hand we no longer have a manufacturing deficit which in itself helps a fair bit. They even tried to scare customers with the usual FUD about their own hybrids.

somewhat related to the last point is that dealers like to "move volume" ($) out of the lot and since dealer allocation for hybrids is no longer the problem it used to be, they have almost as much incentive to move either hybrid or non with the same velocity.


Cheers;

MSantos

 

Of course they did. Overall I was very disappointed with Honda dealerships back in 2003 when I was considering an Insight. Due to the dealership experience, I didn't get an Insight