A Honda Story

[colorider]

I am a long time member of the ST Owners Club which is a virtual motorcycle club on the Internet. It's been around for many years and many of my MC trips I talk about here are to STOC events.

I've had my share of bad experiences with stealers, but reading the following story posted by one of the STOC members, reminds me that not all dealers are stealers and that Mother Honda can shine at times.

Here is his story:

===============================
I've never owned a Honda automobile before, but by all accounts, and my
own experience
with their motorbikes we bought one a couple of months ago for my
youngest daughter
Megan. We did all the research, read consumer reports, talked to
owners, signed
on to the various Honda boards etc. and I split the down payment with
her and
cosigned a 3-year loan (only $100/mo) so that she can have a car, learn
to be responsible
and establish some credit. Even the research phase was constructed as a
lesson,
albeit a fun one, for her and for me. Keeping her patient was probably
the biggest
lesson!

We located an extremely clean 1999 Civic EX 2-door with all the toys
with 80,000
miles on it, sunroof, spoiler (very important to Megan), CD player,
cruise, power
doors & locks as well as key-less entry. As a bonus the car had
complete dealer
performed service records and drove like a dream. All at a fair price.
Seemed
like a no-brainer. Megan gleefully spent the down payment and
licensing money she'd
been saving for the past 2 years working part time, and we took the car
home. I
don't think there's a happier time for a kid than his/her first car.

Then the trouble started.

For the last couple of weeks the automatic transmission has been acting
up, slipping,
shuddering, shifting harshly and making expensive noises. I hate
automatics, they
never seem to have simple inexpensive problems, I don't understand how
they work,
and they are perhaps the most complicated and expensive component on a
late model
car these days. Give me a manual anytime. The Internet is a wonderful
thing, after
some searching and asking specific questions I located a TSB that
seemed to address
the problem. All I needed to do was flush the transmission 2-3 times
with genuine
Honda ATF and replace a $125 solenoid (externally mounted and easily
accessed).
Unfortunately this made no difference to the performance of the
transmission. The
TSB says if this doesn't work "replace the transmission". Mass
depression
set in for Megan and even somewhat for me. I felt we had been let down
by Honda
and as a result I had let down Megan and taught her the wrong lesson.

In desperation, we took the car to the dealer that had been doing all
the maintenance
for the previous owner in hopes there was a simple fix I had
overlooked. I gave
them the sob story about my daughter spending all her money, how we did
extensive
research, and how disappointed we felt about our first experience with
a Honda automobile.
I also pointed out that the car had been well maintained at this very
dealer. The
service manager looked up the car in their data base and sure enough
there it was.
There were even additional routine maintenance that had been done that
the PO apparently
didn't have receipts for. I specifically asked if there were any
complaints in
their records about the transmission - there were none. I was happy
about this
because I did not want to feel badly about the PO. They said they
would take a
look at it and let me know later today. I gulped and handed them the
key.

The call just came in. Bad news, the transmission is shot and has to
be replaced.
Major depression begins to settle in. I decide not to tell Megan quite
yet. The
next sentence out of the service manager's mouth took my breath away.
"I decided
to call Honda on your behalf, I explained how this was your first
experience with
a Honda automobile and that your daughter had spent 2 years savings to
buy this
car and how it had perfect maintenance records" "American Honda has
agreed
to pay for 100% of the repairs!" Wow! Though I'm not that happy that
this
has happened, I have to give commendations to a company that stands
behind its products
like that. They are smart, not only do they retain me as a potential
customer,
more importantly, they will retain Megan, someone who has the potential
to buy many
more cars from them in the future than I do!

I just had to share!

Jeff

===========================

[Sportymonk]

Thanks for posting this. Glad it worked out.

[jay]

What you wanna bet that Honda just created another lifetime customer?

[jcantanixon]

Originally posted by jay
What you wanna bet that Honda just created another lifetime customer?

Does lifetime = Until they switch over to Lexus and then Scion?

[jay]

Originally posted by jcantanixon


Does lifetime = Until they switch over to Lexus and then Scion?

I started with Toyota, learing to drive in my Mom's '73 Corona Mark II, then strayed. But a co-worker and his wife have only bought Hondas since 1976. He still has an '88 Prelude in super condition with less than 100 k on the odometer.