Honda North America can go **** a **** while *****ing a **** *** *****

Have you tried other dealerships, or tried to trade the car in at another car lot?

Have you read the thread?

Yes, I have gone to other dealers. I sat down and talked price at two, the Ford dealer with the Ranger I wanted (2004 4x4 with only 41K miles and they were asking less than $10K) and the Honda dealer where the work was performed.

What would you have me do, show up at random dealers that don't have the car I want and ask them to get the Ranger from the Ford dealer and give me more money for my marked car? Yeah, that will work.

I'm thinking of painting a giant scarlet "O" on the hood for odometer. What do you think?

Oh, and I tried to register at theconsumerist.com, but their site seem to be broken at the moment.
 
No, I'm just thinking you've only dealt with the Honda dealership and a used car dealership. Seems to me, there are thousands of cars that all have odometer issues, plenty without even a sticker. Honda and the state of California has certainly dealt with your problem before. To me looks more like, used car dealer has a car that they are not making a whole lot of money on, and they're trying to pick up your Civic on the cheap.

If it were me I'd call Honda North America again, ask for a manager, and tell them your looking to buy a new whatever the Honda Prius is later in the year, you just need a truck as a secondary car for moving and rough roads, you'd hate to have to go Toyota. When the manager says, sorry I can't help you, ask him if he's ever made an exception before? Otherwise they may be able to at least point you in the right direction. I'd see what the DMV has to say as well.
 
Dave, I wouldn't get upset over suggestions from others to dump the car with the supposed mileage; if they were in their position, I am sure they would answer forthrightly.

Or in other words, it is easy to go against your conscience on the internet.
 
I'm sure there are many cars with odometer issues out there, but really, how many of them are as new as my car? Speedo cables break, shit happens, but usually not until a car is only worth a few thousand anyway. It might be a price difference of tens of dollars in those cases.

I didn't get the feeling that Trevor was trying to cheat me, quite the contrary. He was very up front with the entire proposal of the trade and he never pressured me to exceed my budget or turn to financing. He was a very nice guy and when the deal fell apart he was as disappointed as I was. I have a pretty good Bullshit Detector when dealing with people and I'm a cynic, but Trevor didn't raise any alarms with me.

Jayhawk, thanks for your input. I needed that.

This whole thing has been emailed to TheConsumerist.com
 
Wow I don't even know where to start. I won't even comment on the people who are saying to trade in or sell the car without disclosing the issue. You cannot do that not in the world of Carfax and especially not in Cali where the emissions inspection will catch the mileage problem.

One of the first things I do when looking at a trade is do a Carfax every single time.

I ask the customer a few basic questions about the car.
Then I ask if I can have the keys and take the registration out of the car.
I make a copy of the registration and then hand that copy to the receptionist to get a carfax or if she is busy I run one myself.

My suggestion after going to consumerist and calling Honda NA one more time and immediately asking for a supervisor or someone even higher up is to do this.

Call up the Honda dealer that did the repair in the first place and talk to the service manager or preferably the GM if you can get him/her. Remind them or explain the situation again and ask if they can do this.

Fix the odometer the way it should have been fixed in the first place and get a sale out of it at the same time. Most auto dealers now are part of a fairly large autogroup and it looks like your honda dealer is part of Hendricks autogroup which is HUGE. They almost certainly have a used truck at one their dealerships that will work for you or they can find one.

They fix the odo problem on the Civic take it in trade for its true fair value now that it is not a TMU(True Mileage Unkown) car and they sell a nice truck all at the same time.
 
Wow what the Fuck is with some of the members here? Jesus christ, reading comprehension and intelligence is at a all time low in here.

Blind, about a year ago I met several Honda NA people (the company I worked for delivering cars to journalists)...

Bunch of Nose in the air fuckwads that think they're better than everyone else because it's a 'Honda' vehicle they deal with.

They pissed me off. Best of luck with the odometer problems. If I was you I would head back to the dealer that performed the repair and raise all hell about it.

Raise all mighty hell, scream, yell argue, make a scene till they either kick you out or fix the problem.
 
^ That seems to be the problem.

I could give two shits about the customer who comes going straight for the jugular. Your going to treat me like shit, well then fuck you, cause I'm the only one that can help you. The person who treats me curtiously will be treated as well if not better in return. Being charming and assertive is always better than loud and arrogant.
 
I always give them a chance to fix the problem before I start getting all stabby shouty.
 
+1 to you Blind for doing the right thing.

Question: How much to have the odo calibrated to the correct mileage? (sorry if you've said already, I started skimming over responses)

If the car's value is -$5k because of the odo, give Honda NA one more chance, then just fix it yourself. You'll get the proper trade-in and you can spend the rest of your life turning people away from Honda.

I'm sorry you got fucked, but there are times when it's best to just take a small hit and move on instead of constantly dwelling on the negative.
 
It takes between 2 and 3 hours to get the cluster out, then it has to be shipped, recalibrated, sent back and reinstalled for another 2-3 hours of labor. I can't afford to do that, my family and I are all strapped this month thanks to some new tax laws that went into effect.

The labor times are what I recall from the first repair. Either way, I can't afford it, nor should I have to.
 
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Yeah, I understand you there. My Volvo's speedo shit the bed about a year and a half ago.
My choices were $900 for a new speedo or $450 to have it rebuilt (and I couldn't drive the car for 2 wks.+ while the speedo was shipping to FLA to repair).

Needless to say, neither were acceptable choices.. and I still drive it today with no speedo. I just use "general flow of traffic" to judge my speed - with no tickets yet.

Again, I'm sorry you're behind a rock and a hard place. Good luck.
 
I would try calling at least one more time. Act calm, speak to a supervisor if necessary. Use a voice recorder to record the conversation, and tell them you are recording it. It will make sure that they give proper service. Its what my dad does. He has had issues where a company did not want to admit fault for a product (best buy laptop). He spoke calmly to a supervisor, recorded the convo, and best buy did what he wanted.

Try going to the dealer. talk to the dumb arse salesmen or service people there. say they botched the job and its costing you, and you just want it right. Again, feel free to record the conversation if they allow it (recording never hurts imo). use convincing language...i guess...
 
Yeah, I understand you there. My Volvo's speedo shit the bed about a year and a half ago.
My choices were $900 for a new speedo or $450 to have it rebuilt (and I couldn't drive the car for 2 wks.+ while the speedo was shipping to FLA to repair).

Needless to say, neither were acceptable choices.. and I still drive it today with no speedo. I just use "general flow of traffic" to judge my speed - with no tickets yet.

Again, I'm sorry you're behind a rock and a hard place. Good luck.

Well you only need a tach :p. I had blown out the fuse that powered mine in my Mustang once. I kept it around 1800-1900rpm in 5th gear on the freeway to the auto parts place (60mph). With enough determination you could figure out the rest.
 
It's a legit method of addressing the issue. Just because you had a dealer that tried tried to use it to lowball you doesn't make it improper, etc.

By the way, in those forms you sign, there's a spot for addressing actual mileage because of odometer rollover, etc.

So the bottom line is that you haven't been done wrong, and Honda doesn't "owe" you anything because a particular dealer jerked you around.

Steve
 
It's a legit method of addressing the issue. Just because you had a dealer that tried tried to use it to lowball you doesn't make it improper, etc.

By the way, in those forms you sign, there's a spot for addressing actual mileage because of odometer rollover, etc.

So the bottom line is that you haven't been done wrong, and Honda doesn't "owe" you anything because a particular dealer jerked you around.

Steve

Except that I asked HNA if the way that dealer delt with the original repair is consistent with HNA's policy/practice. They said it was.

This repair was due to manufacturer's defect (their fuck-up) and it was not resolved in the best way and has ended up costing me thousands of dollars. I don't care if the repair meets the letter of the law for minimal effort, it's not a satisfactory repair. If my car was out of warranty and I made the decision to save a few bucks and go with a sticker that's fine, but I was not given a choice. They took the easy (cheap) way out and screwed me in the process. They have, for all intents and purposes, damaged my car to the point it cannot be sold for it's value had the repair been done properly.

If they had done a repair to the engine and failed to pack the bearings properly or put in a cheap timing belt that damaged the motor and thus reduced the value of the car I don't think you would be saying that, Steve. What HNA is saying is that this repair meets their standards of customer care. Maybe if they threw on a cheap Chinese timing belt and 30,000 miles later the engine bends all the exhaust valves that's ok with you, but it's not with me. Combine that with the fact they lied to me about the repair in the first place and I'm fuckin' steamed!

How do you reconcile that? I'd love to hear how doing half-assed repair work that halves the value of the customer's property is ok with you; because with that attitude, I would never do business with you.

Oh, and it's not just the Ford dealer. Re-read my post, the very dealer that did the repair said the exact same thing, my car is only worth $5,000 at any dealer. I've had one private-party sale fall apart when I disclosed the problem, so don't tell me this is isolated to the Ford dealer.
 
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Since tampering with the odometer isn't plausible, how about committing insurance fraud? That's always a sound backup plan. :mrgreen:


I'm sorry to hear that though Blind... I haven't had similar issues with my cars, but I've been hung out to dry by big companies (or small stores, doesn't even really matter) when they were clearly at fault for shitty products or poor workmanship. It's freaking annoying when you know you are right and you know they know you are right, yet you have no options but taking costly legal action.

But seeing as how you stand to lose quite a bit of money, legal action might be a good choice.

I've learned companies are all just evil to some degree or other... if they do help you out with an after-sales situation, you really gotta count yourself lucky since it's a very rare thing. And not to rub it in, but there's always a lesson one can learn, and in this instance you should remember to never accept a shoddy repair job... if you are unsure whether they've done it properly, do some research or ask someone in the know.

I hope you get your shit worked out.
 
I am sure that there are local repair centers that will be able to take care of this problem for you in less than a day. I found a local company that does it in my yellow pages under "Auto Speed Controls". Why that heading? Because many modern speed control systems work directly off the speedometer. If that doesn't work try calling your local 4X4 center, or a transmission shop and ask tham who does speedometer calibrations. I know you shouldn't have to pay for the repair, but it may be your last resort.
 
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It's a legit method of addressing the issue. Just because you had a dealer that tried tried to use it to lowball you doesn't make it improper, etc.

By the way, in those forms you sign, there's a spot for addressing actual mileage because of odometer rollover, etc.

So the bottom line is that you haven't been done wrong, and Honda doesn't "owe" you anything because a particular dealer jerked you around.

Steve

I am a dealer and because of the way the repair was done on Dave's Civic that vehicle is officially a TMU car. The value is dropped drastically because it is TMU. You have to declare TMU when you run a car like that through the auction and its value suffers just like it would if the car had been in a severe accident and you had to declare frame damage. A frame damage call is probably going to hurt the value of a car more then a TMU call but not by much.


The only reason it is still worth as much as it is even being TMU is that it is a relatively low mileage Civic in Cali. Many other cars would not have fared so well.

Oh and Blind you have a PM.
 
^ That seems to be the problem.

I could give two shits about the customer who comes going straight for the jugular. Your going to treat me like shit, well then fuck you, cause I'm the only one that can help you. The person who treats me curtiously will be treated as well if not better in return. Being charming and assertive is always better than loud and arrogant.


If you cause a problem on my car, while it's in *your* care. I will make your life a living hell.
 
I agree with the above comment about consumerist.com. If it gets posted on their site I would be shocked if they didnt contact you directly to fix it. Bad PR costs them way more than small claims court or fixing the problem like you have asked.
That is absolutely correct. If HNA turns Blind off to Honda for life, the odds are that at some point he will stop someone from buying a car from them. The loss of a single sale would cost them much more than it would to make this right. But there's a good chance the people at the HNA call center aren't smart enough to figure that out.

Yeah, I understand you there. My Volvo's speedo shit the bed about a year and a half ago.
My choices were $900 for a new speedo or $450 to have it rebuilt (and I couldn't drive the car for 2 wks.+ while the speedo was shipping to FLA to repair).
Junkyards are your friend! I replaced the speedo on my old car (I wanted a cluster with a tach). The junkyard cluster cost a fraction of the prices you were quoted. I spun it close to the correct mileage with a drill and checked the 'mileage discrepancy' box on the title. I don't know if that's an option for you, but you could look into it.

If you cause a problem on my car, while it's in *your* care. I will make your life a living hell.
OT, but that's why I now do all my own vehicle repairs. And consequently, all the work on most of my family's cars too. :lol:
 
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