I'd be willing to bet that the reason they kept the the car for that long is that when they accepted it as a trade in they valued it far too high in order to make the sale on the Honda and then couldn't move the car themselves, either to a retail customer or wholesale to another dealer. But after 8 months of no action on the car, they decided to cut their losses and sell the car to you, probably at a huge loss (over and above what it has cost them to keep on the lot for that long). At the dealership I used to work for, this was a constant source of friction between the new car manager and used car manager. The new car manager would sometimes accept a trade-in far too "heavy" in order to do a deal on a new car, and the used car manager got stuck with the car in his inventory. It can become an excellent opportunity for a consumer, if you notice a car that's been sitting on a lot for a long time, especially at an off-make dealer.