One star for the time they spent on test-drive and...

One star for the time they spent on test-drive and 3 cups of water. 4 stars off for they baited and fooled me!
At the beginning everything looked OK, Chris helped me in the test-drive, the CRV was in good condition. What it came to the price, just like the most dealers, they are willing to offer a best price only you promise you will buy their car. Upon my strong request, the used car manager Steve indicated (but not promised at this point) around 15000 could be a buy-today price. OK, with this in mind, I kept visiting other dealers and comparing different deals. After looking at several CRVs, I felt this CRV in Downtown Honda was the car I want, so I called Chris to ask for a good price again, and told him if the price is satisfactory, I will buy the car today (they always say they need your commitment so they can give you the best price). He was still reluctant to offer a best price, so I asked him can I buy the car today with 15000, he said "yes, normally you can". OK, that sounds a good deal, and I would take it if there were no better deals. Later that day, I visited a Mazda dealer south of Los Angeles, they have a good Mazda CX-5 in stock, it's just that their price is a little bit above my budget. I want to negotiate the price with the Mazda dealer but they said they can't give you a tentative price if you don't promise to buy it. OK, if no dealer is willing to give a price then you can't actually compare different deals. I decided to call Chris asking for buy-today price again, and he asked for my commitment again, I told him I will either buy his CRV or the Mazda CX5, this was the best commitment I could give because I just can't promise I will buy your car without knowing what price you would give me finally! He asked me to drive back to Downtown Honda to talk about the price, but my friends warned me he might be just trying to persuade me to leave Mazda now. So I insisted he must give me a price, and I would make my final proposal to Mazda based on that price. If Mazda took it, I would buy CX5, if not I would buy his CRV. He was still reluctant to offer a buy-today price but asked me to propose, I said 14500, he said he need to talk to the manager. When he called back he confirmed I could buy today with 14500. It sounded like a pretty good deal and I made my final proposal to Mazda based on that price, which got declined by Mazda. Then I asked my friend to drive me to Downtown to finish the deal, I called Chris again to confirm it and to discuss payment method. But when I asked can I pay 14500 by card and take the car today, he said no, the price of the car is 16600! Haha, I suddenly realized what had happened, he and probably conspired with the manager, just tried to make a false promise to bait me to leave Mazda, that was all they want! I tried to argue with him why he didn't keep the promise, he said he couldn't recall it first, then he said he was referring to another car which we didn't even test-drove, at last he even said the offer was approved by the first manager, but the second manager couldn't agree. OMG, what kind of excuses were they using, they probably just have enough number of managers to kill all the promise they make! I am raged by being fooled like this, I am amazed by how such a big dealer doesn't care about reputation at all, I am also surprised how come they think this strategy will work. By fooling me like this, do they expect I can accept a price reset by them? I understand dealers and in general all merchants try to maximize the profit, but at least you have to keep your promise. Baiting with a lie is definitely across the line!! That was my whole day searching for a car with my friends helping me, that was a great lesson taught by Downtown Honda. Well-played!