Oct 30th, 2008 by RJ Menezes
In an obvious attempt to compete with Toyota’s recently announced 0% financing incentive, American Honda has just announced a few incentives of it’s own. Though Honda’s program does not cover 11 models like Toyota does, it does cover it’s most popular model, the Civic.
Qualified buyers can now get 1.9% financing for a period of 24 to 36 months, along with 3.9% financing for 37 to 60 months on all Civic models except the Civic that’s powered by natural gas. If it’s a lease your after, you can now snatch up a Civic for $189 a month with $1,999 down. That betters Honda’s previous lease program which offered the car at $199 a month with $2,799 down. All the incentives are being handled by Honda’s own bank, American Honda Finance Corp., and so far there have been no dates announced for when it’s going to end.
Oddly enough, the Civic is one of the last Honda cars to use incentives. “That’s a car they didn’t have to incentivize to sell,” says Chad Jennings, finance director of Joe Marina Honda in Tulsa, Okla. But dealers are worried that Honda has yet to match Toyota’s offers, especially since Toyota has had such an aggressive marketing campaign promoting it’s 0% offer.
Those in the market for a fuel-sipping compact are in luck. With both Honda and Toyota competing for your business the incentives are getting pretty juicy indeed. Taking advantage of one of these deals could see you saving yourself a lot o’ dough. Whether or not other manufactures will follow suit remains to be seen.
-Source: Automotive News