What's up with Honda Finance and their hyper specific loyalty bonus?

[SilverRocket]

Posting here just to get some outside opinion/perspective.

My wife and I are looking to get a 2026 Civic Sedan Sport Hybrid and there is a program with HF where owners currently leasing or financing get $500 or more loyalty bonus.

I thought to myself great, The Integra is eligible so another $500 off........ Except no. They want to do a hard pull credit check for me as co-signer even though my wife qualified by herself and they're not willing to make any exceptions. I first tried "same address", marriage certificate, heck I even asked if they could co-sign me with a soft pull.

They keep on ping ponging me between HF and the dealership with bullshit excuses or outright lies. Biggest surprise is that the dealership is doing squat to help us considering they technically have no skin in the game since the rebate is coming from Honda corporate. Wondering if I should walk just from the deal and see another dealer willing to try or if they're all like this.

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[StingertimeNC]

Would be cool to get it, but for $500 I wouldn't spend much time on it.

 

[Victorofhavoc]

Yeah that ^

When dealerships play games I just calmly say "I guess you're not taking a deal seriously" and walk away. I do not stop, but I will leave a card with a sales person or the front desk person and tell them to have the gm call me if they decide they want my money. Then I charge them the a-hole tax.

 

[SilverRocket]

Would be cool to get it, but for $500 I wouldn't spend much time on it.

To a certain degree I concur, but honest question, how do you value your time?

Every single financial decision that is more than $100 and involves leg work by me, I always look at it from an extra money earned perspective.

In this case $500 in my account is about $900 before taxes thanks to banana republic tax levels here in Canuckistan. So if you're not making the equivalent of $113/h (~$250k a year), it's worthwhile to attempt to spend up to 8 hours trying to secure that money because it the work you put into securing it is as if you earned that much more at your job.

Conversely something that is $15 that would take 10 minutes to do might still be of interest to a person making $15/hour, it really all depends on your specific value and desire to do the leg work.

 

[StingertimeNC]

To a certain degree I concur, but honest question, how do you value your time?

Every single financial decision that is more than $100 and involves leg work by me, I always look at it from an extra money earned perspective.

In this case $500 in my account is about $900 before taxes thanks to banana republic tax levels here in Canuckistan. So if you're not making the equivalent of $113/h (~$250k a year), it's worthwhile to attempt to spend up to 8 hours trying to secure that money because it the work you put into securing it is as if you earned that much more at your job.

Conversely something that is $15 that would take 10 minutes to do might still be of interest to a person making $15/hour, it really all depends on your specific value and desire to do the leg work.

yes, totally agree and understand. Wasn't really saying $500 isn't much money, more that I would allow myself to spend the $500 on something I really want, especially to close a car deal. Mostly because I love cars and I subscribe to the "you only live once so it's ok to splurge here and there."

Oh and buying a car is sort of a hassle and I just want to get it over with, LOL.

 

[SilverRocket]

Yeah that ^

When dealerships play games I just calmly say "I guess you're not taking a deal seriously" and walk away. I do not stop, but I will leave a card with a sales person or the front desk person and tell them to have the gm call me if they decide they want my money. Then I charge them the a-hole tax.

With freaking Honda (and Acura), there's no leverage though. There was absolutely none with the ITS but even with the Civic, if we walk away they'll sell it this month maybe next. We already got a good deal but they are not ready to pull out all the stops.

Market is starting to shift back toward the customer's favor but we're buying now ahead of our second child arriving in November. My wife's 10 year old Mazda 3 is on it's way out and car shopping with a newborn is a no go.

 

[SilverRocket]

yes, totally agree and understand. Wasn't really saying $500 isn't much money, more that I would allow myself to spend the $500 on something I really want, especially to close a car deal. Mostly because I love cars and I subscribe to the "you only live once so it's ok to splurge here and there."

Oh and buying a car is sort of a hassle and I just want to get it over with, LOL.

Very true, and I won't let this deal fall through because of this, but the final angle to this is that part of the thrill is finding loopholes.

I once got a $20 specialized battery for 0.75 cents. I would have paid the full $20 but to this day i still smile having used Best Buy's corporate policies to my advantage.

 

[creaturemachine]

By all means fight for every cent, but is that hard pull really going to cost you $500 in the long run? I know everyone's situation is different, but if you know you won't be loan shopping for the next couple years it might not be such a handicap*.

*Not an accountant

 

[crepr12]

A credit check and you save $500.00 or did I miss something...

 

[SilverRocket]

By all means fight for every cent, but is that hard pull really going to cost you $500 in the long run? I know everyone's situation is different, but if you know you won't be loan shopping for the next couple years it might not be such a handicap*.

*Not an accountant

I should have provided a bit more context. I will probably be mortgage rates shopping in about just over a year. Since it's so impossibly cryptic how a credit score is calculated I'm wondering if a second hard pull from Honda in 2 years will still affect me since online they seem to say hard pulls on credit stay in effect for 3-6 years.

For the mortgage, even a 0.01% increase to the rate would easily exceed $500 over the 5 year term.

On my wife's side this will be her first installment type loan so it should actually help her due to an improvement in credit mix and we should have it paid down about 50% by then.

Can you tell I overthink things, maybe a little too much

 

[StingertimeNC]

way overthink, LOL. Here in USA, Mortgage rates are assigned by credit tiers. Highest credit score is 850. If you have a score between say 740 and 850, you will get the best rate available from most any lender in the country.

Hard pull from another bank, from a potential car loan, reduces credit score somewhere around 1-2 points. It's a non event provided you have the rest of your life in control.

 

[akoza]

I should have provided a bit more context. I will probably be mortgage rates shopping in about just over a year. Since it's so impossibly cryptic how a credit score is calculated I'm wondering if a second hard pull from Honda in 2 years will still affect me since online they seem to say hard pulls on credit stay in effect for 3-6 years.

For the mortgage, even a 0.01% increase to the rate would easily exceed $500 over the 5 year term.

On my wife's side this will be her first installment type loan so it should actually help her due to an improvement in credit mix and we should have it paid down about 50% by then.

Can you tell I overthink things, maybe a little too much

I check my credit score quite frequently on Credit Karma and hard pulls drop off after 2 years. In my experience, I don't think the hard pull will affect your credit score that much (especially if you only have 1-2 pulls), but what will make it drop quite a bit (30-50 points) is the new car loan. That should bounce back after probably 6 months of on-time payments. Keep in mind that if you're co-signing, both your credit scores will be affected.

You will likely be ok for the mortgage if it's a whole year out (my wife bought a car 9 months before we bought our house and we were fine). I think the biggest thing they look at for a mortgage is your debt to income ratio and a steady income stream.

Also, not sure whether you've considered this yet, but have you looked at financing with a different bank or credit union? Often they will have lower interest rates than the dealer's financing, and that savings could make up for the $500 loyalty bonus over the life of the loan. Alternatively, you could go with Honda financing now and get the $500 off, and refinance in two years with a different bank/credit union after your mortgage is taken care of (that way you get the $500 and a lower rate for at least part of the term). By then, the hard pull on your car loan should have dropped off, and you can go with a 3 year loan term and likely get a lower interest rate.

Edit: I just read through the previous posts and realized you're in Canada. Everything I said applies to the US - not sure what differences there are for Canada.

 

[STi from DSM]

I buy a car every 6-10 months. My credit is perfect. I have credit pulled from every dealership I look at which is multiple in most cases. $500 in the scheme of things is $9 a month on your payment. If it is worth your time then I would say do it. The impact to your credit as long as you aren't buying tons of things should be relatively minimal.

I forgot to mention that Canada might have different ways of doing things and this was for the US. Sorry Bru, lol.

 

[creaturemachine]

From what I can tell our systems are similar, and the credit agencies are the same as well. What the banks do with the numbers might be different, but what do we know?

Anyway, congrats on the growing family, and for not caving and buying a CRV.

 

[egxflash]

With freaking Honda (and Acura), there's no leverage though. There was absolutely none with the ITS but even with the Civic, if we walk away they'll sell it this month maybe next. We already got a good deal but they are not ready to pull out all the stops.

Market is starting to shift back toward the customer's favor but we're buying now ahead of our second child arriving in November. My wife's 10 year old Mazda 3 is on it's way out and car shopping with a newborn is a no go.

Sorry but what kind of input are you looking at then? You are asking whether you should bend the knee or look at another dealer but you are also saying there's no leverage and they don't have to budge.

In that case, isn't the only reasonable course of action here to shop elsewhere?

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