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Comments
-mike
I have absolutely no complaints regarding the purchase of my 4 Subarus. IMO, the purchase survey is fine to a point. The survey on my last Outback asked a series of questions, instructing to eliminate price as a factor. I am extremely motivated by price, I know what I wanted, so I didn't really care if the dealer is clean, and the sales people knowledgable and polite.
Bob, you are qualifying something that I have been feeling for quite some time.
[rant on]
I have been less and less pleased with the service my local dealer has been providing. The prices for service are escalating - $29.99 for an oil change. I was just quoted $229 for the 15k service on the Outback. I purchased the 100k Gold warrantee on my GT. I did not feel anything like a "gold" customer when I had to deal with any warrantee related repair. Multiple visits, excuses for everything. When they DID fix what was wrong, they seemed to be doing me a big favor. I felt that the service department was motivated not to repair my car unless I paid out of pocket.
[rant off]
Rob M.
For those of you that have been following, Honda slipped. Second gear on the 5spd auto tranny ('02-'04) is not getting lubed, and failures are beginning to mount on higher mileage units. We got the recall notice a few weeks back, but I have been dragging my feet on purpose. The increasing whine has been telling me that we are in trouble, but the recall fix was to add/reposition an internal jet to increase flow, and only replace the tranny if it was badly damaged. The last thing I wanted was for them to simply delay the inevitable failure, then not take responsibility for it.
So with a road trip looming, Beth forced the issue, and I dropped it off yesterday. Sure enough, cooked... The procedure is for them to take a series of digital photos, send them in and wait for approval to replace. It took two rounds of submissions, but the service mgr wouldn't release the car to me unless I promised local driving only. It is going to take them a week to get a unit delivered and installed. When I told him about our 1000 mile trip coming up, he got permission from Honda for a fully paid (including all insurances...) replacement van from Enterprise for 10 days!! I was impressed, and would call that outstanding customer service....
So now we have a Chry T&C Touring, with the stow-&-go seats. Interesting concept if you ride with two people mainly, and haul a lot of stuff. And the big floor bins are great for storage when the seats are up, but it creates a world of compromises. Comparing the middle buckets from the Honda to the Chry is like comparing a Lazyboy recliner to folding beach chairs. I couldn't sit in them for very long. The cushion sit low, and is tilted back sharply. Butt low, knees high. Plus the seatback is very low. In it's normal position, the headrest hit me in my center back between the shoulder blades! I had to have it extended almost to its limit to get behind my head, leaving my shoulders unsupported. So the middle is now kids only, or very short (stature or duration...) adult use.
Also, the spare tire has been moved forward close to the firewall, and is not accessible from inside (as in the Honda). A winch drops it under the front-center of the vehicle, forcing you to move the van, or crawl totally underneath to retrieve it.
Too many oddities to get me to leave my odyssey...
Steve
...Honestly though do you feel you deserve it? You could've easily brought the vehicle in well in advance of your trip saving Honda, and yourself, some grief and expense.
~c
I do agree with you, and actually offered to meet them half way on the rental cost (I pay from next Wednesday on). They turned down my offer!
This is how it went.... I called them recently and made an appt for a whole bunch of 36k service items for the day after we were to return, including two recall notices (tranny and timing belt tensioner). I fully expected the tranny to hold up for a while longer. Reports on the Honda board indicated that the actual failure rate was very low, and almost unheard of at my mileage. But Beth was nervous and asked that they do the 2nd gear check before we went. I called them back and made a second appt. I was counting on it needing replacement, but figured that it was driveable for another week of highway travel. This is part of the note that I left in the night drop on Wednesday.
Loren,
I appreciate you getting us in on short notice. I am going to include the full list just in case you have the capacity to get it done. If you can only get to the tranny service today, so be it.... we have another slot set up thru Scott for August 4th. I will leave both recall notices with you.
1) Transmission Recall - 2nd gear problem.
I have been noticing more whine (under load) lately. Sounds decrease when you lift off the gas.
(list deleted.)
Thanks......
I authorize Friendly Honda to perform the above services as outlined. Please advise if additional work is recommended/required, or if customer bill will exceed $400.00 in total.
Steve H. 07/20/04
So as you can see, it was not my intention to scam them into a rental. But knowing the situation, they offered it. I countered with offering to use Hertz, as the insurance is included on our corporate plan. They called me back saying that they prefered Enterprise, and that they would include the insurance package. So there you have it!
Steve
MNSteve
Nice deal, and nice customer service. It is nice when a dealer, no matter the product, steps up and is willing to work with the customer. That is what provides incentive for a repeat customer.
Now if only more service departments realized that....
Mark
I didn't mean any offense by that last comment and I'm glad you didn't take it that way. I generally don't mince words and I figured you wouldn't disagree with my assessment.
I think it's great that you were able to work out something with your dealer. Sounds like each party took responsibility and in the end the dealer simply wanted to go above & beyond their usual requirements.
The BMW dealer I dealt with for over 2 years was the same way, and I never had problems nor complaint about service or charges. They completed everything fast, competently, and always gave me the benefit of the doubt and loaner cars. I didn't expect anything for free, but I got excellent return on every dollar and minute of time spent.
Once while in there waiting, I couldn't help but overhear a customer complaining loudly. They were way out of line and attempting to abuse very fair and reasonable policies. It really annoyed me because that's no way to repay superior service, and that type of behavior is part of why many dealerships aren't as accomodating to their customers.
It's a two way street.
~c
No offense taken...
I consider myself to be a reasonable person, and look for "win - win" in my personal and professional business dealings. You might get away with 'something for nothing' on occasion, but that is not the way to build a strong long term relationship. The other party is always going to be looking to 'get even', which means you loose big time, usually by more than you gained, when you can least afford it.
Early this morning I actually called the dealership to thank them again for the rental. I also added a full "detailing" package, kidding with them that as they would have my car for a couple of extra days after installing the tranny, that I would give them something profitable to do with their time!
Steve
Nicholas
hopefully, he'll have some success in having them re-welded.
~c
Anyway, I contacted COBB about the problem. They said the same thing has happened to their Forester as well, and on at least one bone stock vehicle. They further reported that Subaru is aware of the problem, and changed the design of the lateral link for the 2005 model. I am loathe to but the whole thing back to stock if this truly is a warranty issue, so I have an email in to Patti asking for verification of this. Not that I don't trust Cobb, but I figure their claim is basically hearsay until I get the story from Patti.
In the mean time, I have one wallowy, clunky sounding FXT! :-(
Well, if Ed's car ever gets here we might be able to verify that.
-Dennis
http://just-auto.com/nd.asp?art=45177&dm=yes
Bob
I think Cobb's story about SOA and the lateral link is irrelevant. The swaybar mount is the problem and the lateral link change has nothing to do with that.
What you need is a beefier bracket. The stock ones presumably were bolted in place; welding them should fix that issue for good if no larger bracket is available.
~Colin
So what you see when you look under tha car is a swaybar, held in place by its brackets, and the ends attached to endlinks. On the left, the endlink connects to a mount on the lateral link. On the right side, the endlink is attached to a mount that is hanging forlornly from the end of the endlink.
this is more strange, but still the short term solution is the same and involves bright colored sparky stuff.
~c
Craig
Well, if Ed's car ever gets here we might be able to verify that.
It will be here soon enough. I told Dennis offline that I'd crawl under the car, take some pics of the links, and post them in my Imagestation account for comparison purposes.
Anyone with live access to '04 and '05 cars, please feel free to check sooner.
Ed
that's from imagestation, so it might go to red X if there is a lot of traffic.
~c
but that does seem like a pretty tenuous connection to the lateral link.
~c
That looks like a pretty cheesy setup to me -- not a whole lot of surface area in the weld joint between the eye and the link. It could be tough to weld that back together -- once you grind off the old bead there will not be a clean mating surface (ie, even less material to join). But I would not spend the money on a new link if the design is the same...
Craig
looks like maybe your mount/endlink failure is a fluke if the STi has the same...
~c
anyway, car goes to dealer tomorrow.
wonder how much the STi lateral links are and if they're the same length. doubt the latter-- but if so that would allow them to be swapped cleanly.
I can't see the STi's bracket being available separately, being welded and all.
~c
[runs to look under car]
What to do, what to do. Moving this discussion to the Modifications forum; I need advice.
We sure could attempt one if you're up for it. I just checked out Seacliff so you're pretty close to highway 17.
Are you going to have a set of wheels? Traffic going towards Santa Cruz from the Valley in the evening is going to be bad. It would make it a lot easier if you could come over the "hill" since it's reverse-commute. We could meet in San Jose (should be about a 30-minute drive from Santa Cruz).
Let me know.
Oh and by the way, Subaru of Santa Cruz also rents Subies, if you're interested. :-)
Ken
Any other Bay Area Crew members that want to meet our East Coast counterpart?
Ken
I need to check my calendar, but if I'm free, perhaps we can carpool over from Valley Fair or something...
Jim
About what time would you be getting out?
Ken
Ken