I hate normal/lower end dealership service, straight up they annoy me. Anytime I get something done which is not very often as you guys know. It ends up being done half assed or something needs to be fixed.

I do pretty much all my maintenance work from brakes, timing belts to valve adjustments even a turbo here or there. However from time to time either the weather or time make it so I just say F it and take it somewhere.

Took the wifes Civic SI in for an oil change, I provided the mobil 1 oil since we run mobil 1. fast forward 3-4 months to last weekend. I changed the oil and noticed that the oil cap was broke. The oil cap/gasket is fine but the outer piece was broke off, either it's someone elses cap or maybe it fell from high up and caught the edge just right, regardless, it's broke. Thankfully it's just cosmetic and is fully functional, I didn't pop the hood to an oil soaked engine bay.

Next I get to the drain plug. I put my wrench on it and give it the nice little bump like I normally give to pop the drain plugs loose. Normally I get it in one hit... nope no go. So I switch to a bigger socket/ratchet... no go. Ok F this. I pulled out my breaker bar... no go. (I was laying on the ground so couldn't give it my all) I had to hit the breaker bar to bust the nut (no pun) free.

Thankfully the oil filter was put on like normal, I didn't have to hammer a screw driver through it to get it off.

I called up the service manager today and he said, we use a special torque wrench that is designed just for the oil plug so they can never be put on too tight. I have zero doubt that that is fully true. However. I have zero doubt that on a busy day when the oil change boy is getting yelled at for not getting cars out fast enough little details like using a torque wrench VS a impact gun get thrown out the window. He asked if it was on a lift or if I had it jacked up. I told him it was up on jacks, and he said I didn't have good leverage on it. That must have been the issue.... I couldn't turn a wrench 22-24 ft lbs.... Although he said their special wrench is set to something like 34lbs.

As to the oil cap. He said its been awhile since they last did the oil (back in Oct) so it could have been anyone/anything.

I knew I have zero chance in making him think otherwise since clearly his whole staff works to a T with zero issues. So I didn't press the point I just said, welp just wanted to let you know. And cut my losses there.

I'm sure I'm a PITA customer that knows everything and since I don't get my car serviced there every 3-4 months, no big loss.

What really pisses me off is I know that if the oil pan got screwed up. It would have been 100% my fault. First off, he would have said, you should let the pros do the service to avoid problems like this. And would have said, I was the one who screwed it up. If they found a problem with the oil pan on the next oil change if I took it to them, I would have never heard about it.

On other stories, last time I had my Z in the shop when they drained the A/C they left the brake cover on top of the engine and sandwiched it between the hood/engine. That got nice and hot on the way home causing it to warp out of shape.

Anytime I ever use a dealership for basic stuff, I always have to top off the fluids or end up having to put something back in place. Hell, first time I had the Z in the shop back in 2003 for a window motor they scratched the inside door panel. I'm **** with my cars. I know when something isn't right/is different. Go figure it was already like that.......

I trust two shops as of right now.

www.hillsgarage.net
Frank is just as **** as me.

www.euromotorcars.com
Euro motor cars is just awesome. They for some reason are smart enough to not allow the shop boys to do half of the basic work like oil changes and tire changes/rotations. Or maybe they don't hire 16-17 year olds for shop work.
Either way I've never been able to find anything out of place with euro motor cars.

Then Hills, while not a dealership, it's one hell of a shop. I hope he grows and is able to manage his employees to keep the same level of analness.

I hate the feeling of not being able to trust major dealerships but I truly don't outside of Euro Motorcars, that's the first car dealership I've been able to trust, ever. At least they've yet to do me wrong.

 

Feel better?

 

I wouldn't touch a typical dealer with a 5280 foot stick. Elite for anything non F/I or tuning related, and Hills for the rest. Be it a minivan, truck, or G/Z in warranty or out, it's no matter.

 

Isn't the oil pan aluminum? I can't imagine what an impact wrench at 150+ft lbs of torque would do to it if it required a breaker bar to loosen the nut.

From what I learned, most places don't do a thorough screening when hiring their employees. "Do you know how to turn a wrench? okay, hired!" Their service staff is like a revolving door. The guy who did the initial work on your car is probably long gone and the service managers are trained to never really take blame for anything. They have seminars how to avoid customer conflict, and how to nicely put them down w/o taking any responsibilities unless caught red-handed. Technically once you drive off the lot, they are no longer held responsible for anything they did. And if you call back and complain, they're TRAINED to beat around the bush with you in hopes that you'll just give up.

With that in mind, that's why I just do everything myself OR know a guy that works there so he can give your car more special attention. Those techs get paid per job so it's in their best interest to pound out as many cars as possible, sacrificing quality.

 

Sounds about right. If the guy said, maybe one of his guys didn't follow their standard rules of always using that special torque wrench and maybe it was a possibility someone dropped the oil cap or closed the hood on it hard enough to break it, but too much time has passed so there's nothing they can do. I'd be cool with that.

Nope, we use special tools everytime, and who knows who could have broke that oil cap, clearly it wasnt them...

I can only imagine how pissed I'd be right now if they messed something major up, only to say they have set protocol to always do perfect work and as Anh said, once you leave the lot... not their problem.

I also had two honda dealerships tell me it would be around $2000-2500 to fix the 3rd gear grind that is common in SIs, when I told them how many miles it had they once again reminded me of what about much a trans job cost. I asked about the warranty the car had and was told the bumper to bumper warranty had expired. I pointed out to the first dealership that the car still had a full power train warranty with honda and transmission falls powertrain, they told me once again the bumper to bumper warranty was expired but they would ask Honda of America if they could maybe extend the bumper to bumper warranty to cover the transmission issue but that was a maybe.....

Honda of Annapolis isn't where we bought the car but I called them 2nd, same answer $2000-2500. The bumper to bumper warranty has expired, however when I made a very clear statement of what part of Transmission IS NOT power train? They said, oh well wait, maybe it is covered.

If I didn't watch myself I would have been screwed, not by one but two Honda dealerships in a row.

Makes me wonder, would they have charged us $2000-2500 and then filed it with Honda of America as warranty work? That could have been a $3500-4500 pay day on 1 car.

 

Nissan tried to do almost the same thing with me in my Z 2 months after I bought it when it was CLEARLY under full warranty.

After I explained to them that there was no way in hell they were pulling that crap they were like well we are tearing it down then the warranty inspector will come in and if you didnt keep on maintenance/have enough fluid/modified its your fault. I told them I just bought the car if its not right its your fault. 10 days later I finally had a cd009 in the car and paid nothing at the time I didnt even know there were different trannys im glad I go the right one now

 

The reason why most dealers beat around the bush with warranty work is because they get paid only 1/2 of the actual job cost. It's not in the best interest of the tech nor the dealership to accept warranty jobs because think about it... why get paid $15/hr on warranty work when you can get paid $30/hr on some regular fix-up job? More money in the tech's pocket, more money for the dealer, less time wasted - all they have to do is deny your claim or at least persuade you it's not "covered" and let it slip through the cracks.

At any rate, if you have trouble in the future, just say, "okay, how about I call Honda of America RIGHT now, and we can sit here together to confirm if my drivetrain is still under warranty or not?" The truth is, they already know it's under warranty, they'll just pretend not to know about it to avoid doing it altogether.

 

Just thought I'd update this.

I still haven't been back, but I have noticed that I now receive a bunch of auto warranty junk mail as with other random junk mail.

I normally wouldn't think anything of it but Honda of Annapolis misspelled my name and go figure, it has carried over to the junk mail.

So thanks Honda of Annapolis for not only doing a **** job but also selling my info.

 

Ever since having the transmission fixed, the car has had what seemed to be a slightly low idle, it would idle smooth but was causing the car to vibrate as if it had solid enough mounts. Blip the throttle a tad and it would smooth out. Today I took the car to Hills Garage to have some new tires mounted and asked him to see if he could bump the idle a bit since it seemed too low. As soon as he got in the car he said the idle looked fine but the car felt weird, as if an engine mount is broke/missing/not installed correctly.

He put the car up on the lift and noticed right away that on the lower mount you could see where the bolt was before, now its moved over little bit causing the mount to hold the transmission/engine a bit low on the front side. He loosened the mount, lifted it and tightened the bolt down where the old marks had it.

He then looked at the motor from the top side, one of the bolts for the mounts were sticking up a tad bit. Wasn't sitting flush with the mount. He went to remove the bolt and noticed it took very little effort to remove it. Once it was out he noticed why it wasn't sitting flush, they added a washer to it. The bolts have built in washers so its pretty weird to find a washer on a washer.

Once the bolt was in his hands it was clear something was wrong. Looks like the bolt was too long, so they added a washer to add some length, on top of that it was still too long so they ground down the bolt a bit, on top of that there wasn't enough threads on the bolt so they went and made some new threads.

Why?

2 guesses.

1. Lost the bolt and grabbed what they could find and made it work.

2. Put a shorter bolt into another mount and the longer bolt went into this one.... Rather then back track to the correct bolt they just made it work.

I'd bring this up with Honda of Annapolis but I'm sure it's my fault.
I will forward this to HoA and see if they care at all, but I doubt they will.

My advice to everyone, if you're going to get work done on your car, take it to jiffy lube or any other shaddy places, at least you know from the get go to double check their work. Why get a false sense of having the car in the right hands when clearly dealerships are no better then the quick lube places.

Big thanks for www.hillsgarage.net for making our car run smooth again.

 

Dealerships don't mean good techs at all unfortunately. I'm working as a service writer at a Honda dealer at the moment, and like any shop, there are good and bad techs. Guys that get come-back work non-stop, exist everywhere. It's just what you showed, they are lazy/not interested and the work reflects that. Warranty work, they bang it out as fast as possible, don't bother to do it right, and don't care if it isn't perfect. There is no pride in the work.

Most smaller shops will have some concern for the quality of work, they have built thier client base off of good treatment and referrals, so they want the people to come back. A dealership has a steady influx of new customer from new sales, warranty, recalls, etc. They can afford to ignore/mistreat the occasional customer, because more will come. I personally hate to see my fellow writers do this, as it makes us all look bad as a group, and I for one take pride in my work and taking good care of my customers. Sadly that is not the trend in this industry.

 

There are good and bad techs at every dealer. There is only one dealer I would ever take my G to and only one tech at said dealership I have ever let wrench or drive the car. Not that there aren't more like him, I just don't wanna take any chances .

 

Fact: 99% of mechanics just don't give a fawk.

 

I guess it could be worse, I could have taken it to AAM.

Jiffy Lube it is from here on out!

 

^ lol. There has to got to be a AAM thread I am missing here.

Back on topic. I bought a Infiniti I30 a while ago used. It came up with a check engine light a day later. 3 seperate dealer trips. 2 o2 sensors, 1 MAF and some made up fuel injection service finally made it go away. Thank god I was not paying. The bill was shown to me to total like 2k (way overpriced but still).

Its their own money for parts and labor and they still randomly change out parts to fix the problem. With a consult 2 I would have been able to diagnose the problem the first time in like 10 minutes. Atleast they gave a free loaner so not much hassle to me

 

With dealerships the mechanics get paid the amount of hours (sure you all know this) that the job is rated to take from higher ups. I would say that in my experience the techs at the shop my dad works(subaru/vw dealership) at for 1 day a week seem pretty bright, and I don't think any of them would do a crappy job like you have experienced. But this is not that shop or even the same state. All I know is from what I have head here, if my dad isn't able to come work on my car or I am not able to get it to him Hills is probably the only place I would let my cars get worked on(assuming that I can't do it myself)

guess what I am saying not all dealerships are bad and not all techs are fawking stupid

Guess your luck just sucks jeff

 

Damn Jeffie...wth...that sucks but atleast it was something pretty easy to find. What lazy fools some techs can be. You KNOW the correct bolt was 10ft away from them...

I have very few people who touch my vehicles and dealers are for recalls and major warranty ish. Half the time I'll diagnose and tell them what it is before even taking it there. Most of the time it's not all that difficult.

Even if I couldn't do it myself I'd take it to a Frank or someone similar who I trust and pay the $75 to throw it on the lift real quick and have him check it. That $75 can save a lot of headache dealing with idiots at dealers and other shops. And no offense to anyone here but most service writers are idiots as well.

When you do "tell them" what to do though...you have to kind of be gentle and use tact b/c some of them I've found get all defensive and butthurt that a "customer" might know a little more than they do.