Well, after all the research and comments from the boards here, my wife and I went shopping and it only took one dealership!

We are shopping for two cars: My wife - an Odyssey, and myself, of course, a RL.

I contacted the Internet sales guy (Aaron) and met him yesterday. Knowing we are shopping for two cars, he was more than accomodating.

I learned that internet sales are the same as fleet sales and try to price lower with minimal haggling.

I wanted an RTS but they had none in stock and none on order that weren't already pre-sold. But they had a red rock pearl on order but in RTL (didn't have to twist my arm!). They did have three in stock but not the color I wanted.

Basically, after the 'minimal haggling' and compensating me for taking the RTL instead of waiting on the RTS, I got the RTL for $1,263 BELOW MSRP!! :D .(We ended up with the Odyessy for $2,500 below MSRP.)

It sure helped that we were buying two cars! (Also, cash - recent re-fi on house ). He gave the additional $263 because our trade in came below expectations!

My RL is scheduled to hit the production line around May 11th, with a delivery date of around early June.

So, what a sweet Father's Day present!!

As of now, no accessories ordered. I will be contacting the salesman and get prices for some of the accessories (running boards, backing sensors, splash guards and wind deflector). I know they are cheaper on H & A and I may attempt the latter two myself, but that's it in terms of my mechanical abilities.

For those interested, I am buying thru Tempe Honda in Tempe, AZ. And an interesting comment from Aaron....he started off by offering $500 below MSRP (likely the internet/fleet deal). Maybe a standard practice, so if you shop, try contacting the internet rep or fleet rep at your dealership.

I'll keep ya posted when I hit the road!

Congratulations...you made a great decision. I'll look forward to your contributions to this forum. BTW, Trevor with H&A is great resource for your accessories. I've orderd a few things from them already and they have been nothing but professional. I've contacted Trevor through PMs and he is quick to reply. :cool:

Congratulations and welcome to the boards. Sounds like you got a great deal.

Interesting experience. I did my shopping on line and did the Cars.com thing to get dealers inthe area. All were at MSRP but were willing to work on the accessories. So what I did is go outside my home zip code to towns about an hour away or a bit less. Found a dealer that will take 1K off MSRP. Went to the other dealers in my area and said, "You stated you were willing to work with me, here is the price, can you match or beat?" Not one was interested in doing so.

I pick up my RTL on Thursday.

I did the same--searching on carsdirect using zip codes of places I might visit this summer and found a dealer in Cedar Rapids, Iowa where my sister lives that is offering something like 1700.00 off MSRP. The only concern though is I don't know if 1500 miles in 5 days is too much driving during the break in period...what do you people think? The other places were NYC or Maine but I don't feel like driving all the way back to the Washington.

~300 miles a day in a brand new RidgeLine sounds like a perfect break-in to me. Only a few starts, no severe braking, low RPM highway driving. Can I come along for the ride?

Hmmm, I remeber buying a BMW motorcycle. the breakin ride was from NJ to Alaska up the Alcan in summer. From zero miles to 9000 in 2.5 weeks.

What is the break-in period, anyway. I now have 4133 miles on in my first 5 weeks. Oil change time is fast approaching (5,000 for me). For those that would like to know, the first 2,000 miles the mpg was fairly erractic, but the past 2,000, I've been constantly averaging 21.5 mpg @75/25 ratio.