OT: Does Honda/Acura understand customer service?!!?

[06CSX.3.19.26]

Honda likes to advertise that they offer above average service... Acura, prides itself on being the luxury division so one might expect luxury service. But given the following set of circumstances, what do you think?

May 26th my wife's '06 Acura CSX was involved in a single vehicle accident by narrowly avoiding the car running a red light at 11 o'clock on a Friday night. Unfortunately, the CSX sustains not only body damage, but some pretty impressive undercarriage and safety equipment damage.

We sent the car to the body shop where we get most of the work ever required on our cars, Clear Collision. CC works with Manitoba Public Insurance but in order to get several safety measures properly fixed it needs to be sent to the dealer.

This is the part where Crown Acura, a Dilarwi Group car dealership and the only Acura dealer in Manitoba, gets involved.

The car is brought to the dealership on July 9th. Looked and on the

10th and work starts on the 11th. It is now the 27th and various parts are being shipped, have arrived, been mislabeled, not installed, and safety checks not yet completed as a result. EIGHTEEN days to not have the car even close to being road worthy yet. According to the service fellow, they can build an entire CSX in under 6 hours... of course, that is before they have your money!

So, with a vacation pending on Sunday, no car in sight, it would seem reasonable that Acura would want to keep an unhappy Acura customer slightly more mollified by providing them with some assistance in the way of a rental car, or some such option, for the pending vacation. A reasonable consumer might think that, wouldn't one?

The answer according to Acura Rental and Customer Care - is no. This is not Acura's problem.

Let's see here, Crown Acura (Acura Canada's licensee) has had the car for 18 days with no end in sight for the car being road worthy. Parts have arrived that have been mislabeled and therefore useless - more than useless, they have slowed down the repair process - and the answer is not our problem.

Friday afternoon after an hour of watching the service fellow try all the available avenues available to him, he passes the file over to the service manager. At 4:15 he suggests that he will make some calls to see what he can do.

We head back at 5:15, still no contact from Crown Acura. After going around the "we're Acura customers that are unhappy" - "we're not responsible" shtick a few times, the service manager comes up with a solution that gets them off the hook for their part of this debacle... they will strip out a shoulder harness from an '07 CSX and put it into our '06. That way, Crown Acura has provided the most minimal level of service required.

Does this sound like the level of service you might expect from a luxury car company?

I suggest that you very carefully consider your options when buying a new Honda luxury car... does it sound to you like Acura has any clue what the expectations of its clientele are?

I have received far superior service from your run of mill North American car dealerships. Why bother paying for the Honda/Acura name; when you can save yourself $5-10,000 and buy local?

[Sarah]

Because it will last four times as long?

[Eigenvector]

That's assuming you don't slap an oversized aluminum spoiler on the back, a Yuban coffee can muffler, and plaster "Team Honda" stickers all over the windshield, polished off with oversized ground effects and ultra-chrome wheels.

[Eigenvector]

Or at least until the timing belt breaks or the transmission for the V6 engine craps out.

[Sheldon]

What makes you think the Honda service center has an obligation to Clear Collision... if you wanted your car repaired by Honda you should have brought it there FIRST! You obviously attempted to circumvent Honda, probably to save a few dollars on the labor rate. Honda is under no obligation to become a subcontractor to Clear Collision nor should they in any way involve themselves, in fact they are doing the honorable thing regarding their regular customers by not becoming involved in your penny pinching cheap bastard scheme. Why would any dealership want to take responsibility for the safety issues resulting from damages sustained in a driving accident and then not perform the actual work, why should they compromise Honda's integrity just because you have none.

[spampot]

Hmmm...our Accord doesn't have a timing belt.

[enigma]

spampot wrote in news:5c-dnY90xJwbSTHbnZ2dnUVZ [e-mail]:

if it doesn't have a timing belt, it has a timing chain. either way they can break. the replacement (of either) should be every 100k miles. my CRV just got it's 3rd timing belt installed... lee

[William Wagner]

Also a good time to replace the water pump as the water pump has to come off to get to chain.

Bill

[Eigenvector]

You know just a cursory search for Accord V6 and 2000 pulled up lots of references to changing the timing BELT at 60,000. Not that it's extraordinary, that's a typical recommended milage for all cars with OHC. It also called up a couple of recalls and an issue with the oil pump, recall or requested repair of the SRS, computer issue and a few more mentions of the transmission problems.

All of this is quite normal for a complex piece of machinery, which is why I'm not standing up waving the Japanese flag because their vehicles are so super wonderful - they aren't. They're just like all the other cars out there.

[enigma]

William Wagner wrote in news:----- [e-mail] pernews.net:

yup. did that too. i really like the CRV (it's a 98, standard tranny). i'm somewhat amazed that it has the original muffler & exhaust system and *no* rust, after all the lovely New England winters it's been through (where they salt instead of plow when there's less than 2" of snow). lee