I am once again in a Honda HR-V…
March 24, 2023, 6:33 PM
All I have to say is, thank goodness. Five and a half months after my original Honda HR-V was totaled in an accident, and on the 27th anniversary of this website’s founding, I am at last back in an HR-V. It was a much longer journey than anyone expected, but we got there. The thing about buying a new car right now is that because of a semiconductor shortage, the demand for cars far outstrips the supply, and most new cars are already spoken for before they’re even manufactured. As such, right now, you can’t just buy a new car off of the lot and then drive it home. Rather, you’ve got to get into the queue, and your car will be built and delivered in a few months’ time.
The biggest take-home for me in the whole process was learning a lot about how cars get to dealerships. Going into this, I thought that the customer ordered the car that they wanted, the dealership placed that order with the manufacturer, and then the manufacturer would build it and ship it to the dealership, where the customer would be waiting. Turns out that’s not how it works. How it actually works is that the manufacturer makes whatever they want, and then they allocate a certain number of cars to each dealership. Then the dealerships either sell those cars themselves, or trade them amongst each other to meet customer needs. I suspect that my lack of understanding of how this worked led to some delay, as I inadvertently sent my contact at Shockley Honda on a wild goose chase with a very specific request that made it harder to get me a car.
But before I got to that point, I had to make sure that another HR-V was what I wanted for my next car. That wasn’t as straightforward as one might think, because Honda had redesigned the HR-V for 2023. Therefore, it wouldn’t be the same HR-V as I had just lost. The HR-V had gotten a platform change, now sharing a platform with the Civic rather than the Fit. It was also a bigger vehicle than it used to be. On October 10, a day or so after the accident, after getting my new glasses and speaking with many different people from the insurance company, I was heading home after dropping Elyse off with a friend for a little while. My route took me past Herson’s Honda in Rockville, and I glanced over at the lot to see what they had. To my surprise, there was a 2023 HR-V sitting on their lot. Time to act: I busted a move across a couple of lanes of traffic to get in there to see about taking that HR-V for a test drive. I talked to the salesman, and he showed me everything on it, and we took it for a spin around Rockville, over various kinds of roads so that I could get a good feel for how it handled. It all felt very familiar. In other words, while it may have looked different and it had a lot of fancy new features, it was still an HR-V under all of that. Then the next day, I took Elyse with me to the dealership and we gave it another test drive. Funny thing was that neither the second salesman nor Elyse noticed that I never set the mirrors, the seat, or anything when I got into it. I just jumped in and we were off, because it was all still set for me from the day before. That second test drive validated my findings from the first drive, and I also asked a few questions that I had forgotten to ask the day before. So it was settled: my next car would be another HR-V. And in what felt like a surprising move, I went with the EX-L trim, i.e. the top-tier version. Reason was that on the 2023 models, EX-L was the only trim that had a moon roof. The sport trim didn’t have a moon roof anymore.
Of course, there was no way that Herson’s was ever going to get that sale. Herson’s, you may recall, was the last shop to touch my Kia Soul before it burst into flames, and after that experience, I was never going to give them any more of my business. However, I had no problem with using them for a test drive, because that didn’t cost me anything, and actually cost them money in fuel plus staff time. I was always going to buy the car from Shockley up in Frederick, because that’s the dealership that I bought the first HR-V from, and they seem like genuinely good people.
My initial request in getting the new HR-V was to ask for a red one. I figured, why not, because you only live once. My contact at Shockley said that they would probably need to do a dealer swap, i.e. trade one from their allocation for one from another dealer’s allocation, and that would be that. As it turned out, that was easier said than done, since the dealership was having great difficulty in locating a red one, and the clock for my getting a car really didn’t start until I had my name on an allocated vehicle. And with difficulty locating a red one, that caused a delay. Not wanting to lengthen the delay any more than necessary, I mentioned to my contact that I was open to other colors, which opened things up a bit. I had mentioned that I really liked the “Nordic Forest Pearl” color, but that turned out to be just as difficult to locate as red had been. Eventually, in order to get the clock started, we put my name on a black EX-L, with the thought I was open to another color, just as long as it was the EX-L trim with all-wheel drive, the black interior, and not in white. I wasn’t thrilled with having a black car, but if black was what we could do, then black it was. Fortunately, the dealership was able to locate a vehicle with everything that I wanted in “Modern Steel Metallic”, which was the same color as my original HR-V. I considered that to be quite fitting, and I communicated that I was content with that color. This was in January, but now, things were really starting to get rolling. We had a build window of February 14-18, and a delivery window of March 8-12. The build occurred right on schedule, but then it missed the delivery window by a few days, which in turn changed my plans for the trip that I was already making to Staunton on March 15-17 from one where I had planned to return my parents’ Scion to them and then take the train home, to something more akin to a standard trip, where I drove both ways. As it would happen, the delivery date was revised to March 17, and I got a call from my contact on that day letting me know that it had arrived. I wouldn’t be able to get up there until the following Thursday due to my work schedule, but it was okay – there was no pressing need to get the HR-V home sooner (and I didn’t want to be hemmed in with a hard time limit when we were completing the sale, which precluded my taking care of it one day before work), and my parents had no immediate need for the Scion, which meant that I didn’t have to bring it back right away.
With that in mind, I would get the new HR-V on the 23rd, which was my next day off. The Scion would then go back to my parents on the 30th, and I would combine that delivery trip with an overnight trip to Richmond for some photography. All of the various stakeholders (the dealership, my parents, and Elyse) were good with that plan, and thus it would be so.
First, though, since Elyse and I were already out on a road trip, I realized on the way up that I wanted to get a preview of my new car before then. Normally, when we go home from Augusta County via I-81, we get on I-66 in Strasburg and take that to the Beltway and then to I-270 to get home. It’s not a bad route, but I am not a big fan of dealing with I-66 in Fairfax County and the Beltway when I’m tired at the end of a trip. I have an alternate route that goes through Frederick, Harpers Ferry, Charles Town, and Winchester, largely via US 340 and VA 7, and we’ve used it on a few occasions in the past, though always on a southbound trip – never northbound. So while we were traveling up I-81, I let Elyse know that we were going to take the alternate route home. We had a good time on the alternate route, stopping at a Sheetz for dinner, and then driving through the historic part of Harpers Ferry, and taking 340 all the way to its terminus in downtown Frederick. Heading towards I-270, I passed the entrance ramp and headed over to Shockley Honda, which is just beyond I-270. Elyse saw this, and was like, “Was this why you wanted to take the alternate route?” Guilty as charged. I wanted to take a look at my new car, and the alternate route facilitated that.
We verified that it was my car via the VIN that I had been given, and then I got some photos, as well as some selfies:
I definitely enjoyed that, even if it was 2:30 in the morning.
Then on Thursday, the dealership sent someone down to pick Elyse and me up, and it was time to complete the sale. I just had to remember to bring the check and the license plates, and all would be good. Speaking of the check, I was really pleased about how I financed the new HR-V. I did something that I never thought I would be able to do: I paid cash for a new car. I took the insurance proceeds from the accident, made up the difference from savings, and just paid with a cashier’s check. Then I’m making monthly payments to myself to pay back my savings. My contact at the dealership asked me, with a smile, “Did you give yourself a good rate?” We all got a laugh about that. I described my financier as “The First National Bank of Ben Schumin”. But, hey, no credit application, no credit check, and no dealing with two-part titles (Maryland gives the owner the title, and sends the finance company a lien certificate), and therefore no having to get the two parts put back together after the car is paid off. My car is all mine, and that’s that.
After all of the paperwork was complete (and a lot of laughter from everyone over the awful signatures that I was producing with a computer mouse), it was time to get some photos and then take it out for a spin. I had brought my DSLR and the tripod along for this occasion, and I got some photos. I wanted to get photos of both Elyse and me standing with the car, but unfortunately, Elyse didn’t want to join in, unfortunately, so I got photos with just me, with Elyse’s head visible inside in some of the shots.
First, I got shots of just the car:
Then I got some photos of me with the car:
Then after I finished with my tripod selfies, I got a regular selfie from the driver’s seat:
And then we were off. We had some errands to run in while we were in Frederick, so we took care of them. We went over to Walmart, where I needed to get some tomatoes. While we were at Walmart, there was a sudden, heavy downpour that left as quickly as it came. Coming out, there was a rainbow visible:
I found the rainbow quite fitting after having just gotten a new car, to bring this whole car accident ordeal largely to a close. It’s like it represents a fresh start, and a new beginning.
Then I photographed the HR-V:
Meanwhile, I had a fun time taking it around, with the goal of getting reacquainted with how an HR-V handled after five months’ time driving a Toyota. From Walmart, I took it through downtown Frederick, and then down Route 355 to Hyattstown. There, we got on I-270 and took that down to Montrose Road. We then headed to Pike and Rose, where Elyse and I had dinner at Jinya Ramen Bar. That was fun, as it was a nice enough day that we ate outside. Just as well, too, because the interior of the restaurant was somewhat noisy.
From there, we headed up Rockville Pike, hitting up Aldi and Target along the way. We did a lap around Lakeforest Mall, which is slated to close at the end of this month, and then we headed home via Montgomery Village Avenue. Going via Montgomery Village Avenue was intentional, because that was the trip that the original HR-V never got to finish.
And then at the end of the trip, the HR-V slipped right into its parking space, next to the Scion, which was now parked in the second space. So, until next Thursday, i.e. for approximately a week, we will be a two-car household, until I go down to visit my parents and return their car to them. Of course, it’s not like the Scion is going anywhere for that last week now that I have the HR-V. Next time the Scion moves will likely be on its trip back to Stuarts Draft. And in the meantime, I have lots of things to figure out, like what position the seat should be in, getting a good feel for the shape and size of this thing, and, of course, how to best use Android Auto and all of the various other “smart” features of this vehicle.
All in all, I like my new car. If all goes well, we will do many happy miles together.
Categories: Frederick, Honda HR-V (2023)