only good deal is if you feel you made a good deal. no two deals are the same.
I completely agree with this statement. Available inventory, sales volumes, dealer size, day of the week, time of the month, and time of the year will vastly determine the sort of price you'll pay for a new car, and there isn't any kind of a "Rule of Thumb" for how to get the best offering. Traveling to a smaller town and not buying a truck can help you get a better price as many outstate dealers don't deal in as many cars and they want to keep their allotment numbers up, so moving slow(er) sellers at a lower margin may be preferable to them.
As is usually the case, the better price often comes with a reduced selection, particularly toward the end of the model year. At this moment, the better selling Civics are the LX and Sport models, and right now I'm seeing the local dealers offering better pricing on EX, leather, and Touring models as they have more of them to move. As we draw closer to the end of the annual run, the pricing will get better but the selection thins drastically. . . If cost is more important than getting the model and options you desire, then hold out for mid-to-late September and the best deals can be had. I bought my 2006 Accord EX (4 cylinder) right off of the show floor in early October of 2006 for nearly $6,000 below the sticker price (stickered for $25,900 and I paid just under $20k before taxes). It wasn't the car I wanted, but the deal was too good to pass up and the ex-wife is still driving that car today.
The most important thing is that you feel okay with what you paid. Forever you will hear anecdotes of people who were in the right place at the right time and paid much less than you did for a comparable car; that's simply the nature of the beast. I bought my 2017 EX Hatch in February just after they came out and the dealer was offering a $500 "incentive" to celebrate President's Day, otherwise I was paying the full sticker price. They were happy-ish to negotiate on my trade, but that deal was being written with me paying $23,165 regardless of how they worked out all of the other nonsense.
