Honda of Annapolis service and other dealerships Rant.

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jeffie7

Wrong Whole!
VIP
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 anal 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.

Nissan and Infiniti mechanic in Baltimore
Frank is just as anal as me.

EuroMotorcars, Inc. - Premier Dealer of Mercedes-Benz, Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Maybach, Sprinter and Smart Vehicles
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.



/Rant
 
it's going to happen that way. it's just the reputation of people who work on the cars. honda boys work at honda shops. and you get honda boy quality labor. go to mercedes and usually you will get guys that have been through mercedes training.

until you get the wifey a mercedes or bmw, you are stuck doing it all yourself.
 
it's going to happen that way. it's just the reputation of people who work on the cars. honda boys work at honda shops. and you get honda boy quality labor. go to mercedes and usually you will get guys that have been through mercedes training.

until you get the wifey a mercedes or bmw, you are stuck doing it all yourself.

I don't mind honda boys working on my car, they know their stuff on basic things and if into cars they tend to care, but a lot of local shops have hired some of our younger employees 16-17. I get to hear about how they're washing cars and when shit hits the fan doing oil changes...

Besides, they do have real techs that work there. All major dealerships have legit techs, but most of them are doing major jobs.

If she didn't drive 120miles a day for work She'd have a benz or audi right now.
 
I thought Jeffie and Lorenzo were already rolling in a Benzo?
 
I understand your pain. If you are really that pissed about it, threaten to call American Honda and complain. 50% of the time that will work. Honda techs are usually well trained. The problem is that they have the grease monkey making $8.50 an hour do the oil changes. I have to deal with these fuckers at my job. I design dealer installed stuff for Honda/Acura, and I gotta keep in mind someone with a double digit IQ is doing the work.
 
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I don't mind honda boys working on my car, they know their stuff on basic things and if into cars they tend to care, but a lot of local shops have hired some of our younger employees 16-17. I get to hear about how they're washing cars and when shit hits the fan doing oil changes...

Besides, they do have real techs that work there. All major dealerships have legit techs, but most of them are doing major jobs.

If she didn't drive 120miles a day for work She'd have a benz or audi right now.

So you are pissed about and underpaid grease monkey doing a half assed job on your mid level econo Honda? I think you have your expectations a little high. I have personally given up on the thought of getting any reliable help from accountable employees, and having it at a reasonable price. This isn't 1957. America has been going downhill for years.
 
I have worked for 2 honda dealers, the first hired college students and high school drop outs to change oil. the second and current has a 35 year old and a 40 year old changing oil. My current dealer seems to have less problems with oil changes. Although you have to change a lot of oil to make any money at it. The industry just sucks, I know I work in it. I wouldn't let anyone change my oil. I trust no one! I know I do it right every time, unfortunately you never know who your gonna get at any shop. Find a good mechanic you trust and request him every time you go to that facility.
 
don't worry. This thread will soon rank well in the search engines, and they'll lose more business from potential customers reading this thread and choosing to go elsewhere than if they just got you a new oil cap and apologized.

internet > customer service
 

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could have shut the hood on the cap, honda trains you to rest the oil cap on the hood latch, so when you shut the hood after forgetting to put the fill cap back on....the hood won't shut. the chimp may have been too embarassed to own up to it! I dropped one and broke it once though. dealer wants techs to own up and do the right thing, dealers don't want bad rep.
 
the only thing i let my subaru dealer do is change the oil. and i only let them do that because its free (free oil changes for life + other little things that dont really matter, for buying the car there). last time i was at the dealer getting an oil change, they were all like

D: "your alignment is bad, apparently your car is lowered"
me: "0_o, o rly?, thats because i lowered it. how far off is the alignment, and what specs are off?"
D: "oh we dont know, we didnt put it on the rack"
me: "lol, great, ill deal with it later"

keep in mind, my WRX is barely lowered, </= 1" from stock

anything else i either do myself, or IAG does it. IAG is in Westminster, which is a drive for me, but worth it because they specialize in subaru and have great attention to detail and do great work. so far they have done my alignments, and installed my short shifter (PITA on a suby +cold outside), and are doing my 30k service +tint next week. really the only downside to IAG is that there is always a 2+ week wait for an appointment. they are always booked, (good for them). and Ive taken care of the suspension work done (springs/dampers/sways/etc).
 
So you are pissed about and underpaid grease monkey doing a half assed job on your mid level econo Honda? I think you have your expectations a little high. I have personally given up on the thought of getting any reliable help from accountable employees, and having it at a reasonable price. This isn't 1957. America has been going downhill for years.

Yes.

Since when was the dealership a reasonable price for stuff? Toyota is running a special right now for a oil change, and tire rotation for $39.99 but wait, it gets better, they have a $10.00 mail in rebate Making it $29.99 I have no idea what I paid for this oil change since Linh just signed and went on her way, guessing $20 or $30 not counting the 4.5 quarts of mobil 1 we provided.

If I wanted a half ass job done I'd take it to jiffy lube. Taking it to a major Honda dealership I expect for them to not break the oil cap and torque the shit out of a drainplug.

Thankfully it wont matter to 95% of their customers since no one would never know any better. As long as the oil light doesn't come on, they're happy.
 
don't worry. This thread will soon rank well in the search engines, and they'll lose more business from potential customers reading this thread and choosing to go elsewhere than if they just got you a new oil cap and apologized.

internet > customer service

Currently honda of annapolis rant and honda of annapolis problem are pulliing the my350z link within the first google page

Doesn't really matter. No one cares, it's just a little rant that is no where near as bad as other dealership issues people would be bitching about online.

I've delt with the owner of the dealership a few times. My boss bought a car straight from him, he tried selling Linh a car and always makes a point to talk to us anytime we see him. He's even told me about taking our other cars into service at his dealership. I had a TL, we talked about having it serviced there.

Guessing talking to him directly would get things moving a lot faster but what gets me is I know the oil cap is $7 at their cost. Service manager offered it to me for $15.

If anything why not just say, hey this guy may or may not be working me over but hey, why not just let something go at cost and see if that helps any. At least it would have been something more then, nope we didn't do anything. It's you.
 
Oil changes on the G37 were $80 and the dealer. No reason it should cost double or even triple jiffy lube. But we got great service and they would detail the car. Jeffie your expectations are too high. $30 for an oil change saved you time, labor, and the headache of doing it. IMHO you had one shitty incident that should bs attributed over expectations.
 
Oil changes on the G37 were $80 and the dealer. No reason it should cost double or even triple jiffy lube. But we got great service and they would detail the car. Jeffie your expectations are too high. $30 for an oil change saved you time, labor, and the headache of doing it. IMHO you had one shitty incident that should bs attributed over expectations.

And it could have easily cost me an oil pan.

a reply from another forum.

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.

btw $80 seems high unless thats with synthetic oil.

Benz is about $120-140 but thats with 8 quarts of mobil 1 + the filter.

12K miles/1 year.
 
Ya, it's synthetic. But it's required because of some sort of valve tick the g37 had and to maintain the warranty it was required.

The shitty thing in your situation, if you took it to the dealer, they probably would change the oil in fear of the tight drain bolt. I've been turned back before because they didn't want to cause damage on the removal.
 
I'd be hella pissed too! I had a stuck oil pan bolt on my Accord. I didn't use a breaker bar but it ended up stripping the threads when I got the bolt out. Previous owner always took it to Jiffy Lube or Pep Boys; but if it took a break bar to get it off, then they obviously did the same shit.
 
i loathe taking a car to a dealer, i used to work at one, i know what they fuck up.

we had 1 tech that was actually decent, the only guy that knew how to actually diagnosed, they fired him because he took too long. this guy wasnt rich, but he wasnt trying to make shit loads of money. he was just into tech work, loved it, and loved doing shit right the first time and taking his time while doing it.

what were we left with? a bunch of "techs" that barely knew how to change oil, let alone try to diag things. they would throw parts at it til it worked.

we had one guy, man i could rant on this guy for pages.
we called him slash. because he was a subaru/mazda/honda/porsche/ferrari/vw master technician. not just a certified tech, he was a "master" tech of all of these different companies.

basically, this guy worked at a dealership for about month before he got fired and went to another. i know for a fact that no shop would ever let him touch a porsche or ferrari, he broke everything he touched.
he would go from dealer to dealer until he exhausted his options and had to move to a different city.

we spent so much money repairing shit after he left. it was ridiculous. the parts mangager kept telling the service manager to get rid of him, he was only fucking shit up, service manager wouldnt do shit about it, but to his credit, i believe he was half retarded anyway.


thats the kind of service you get at a dealer.
the wifes car has a recall on it right now. im terrified to take it to have it done.
been putting it off.
 
If I wanted a half ass job done I'd take it to jiffy lube. Taking it to a major Honda dealership I expect for them to not break the oil cap and torque the shit out of a drainplug..

Around here, there are very few times that there is a difference in taking it to the Jiffy Lube type place or a dealer. Most of the time- if you pass the drug test, you can change oil (in their opinion).I never take my car anywhere to have anything done, thank goodness. Between me, my husband, my dad, and my 2 brothers- everything gets fixed. If we need some type of machine we don't have (a lift, tire mount machine, etc.) we take it to a friends' shop where my husband can be right there either doing the work, helping, or watching it get done. I made the mistake about 10 years ago of taking my CRX to have the oil changed- before I even left the lot I smelled burning oil and stopped. Lifted the hood and there is oil EVERYWHERE. They forgot to put the cap back on. That was the last time for that. I took my CRX to a place to have new tires once- and specifically told them to not tighten my lug nuts with an impact- and please use a torque wrench. I was told &quot;no problem&quot;. Next day, I was missing a lug nut- found out that they had used the impact and tightened it so much that it stretched the stud. Got to checking the other ones- ALL stretched. I will give them the credit for buying me all new wheel studs. We just pressed them in at home.Places are too busy to listen, too stubborn to listen, and always think they know more than you do. Being a female makes it worse. Oh and I don't know how everyone's experiences with parts stores are elsewhere, but you can forget about decent help at Auto Zone, Advanced, or the like around here. They are DUMBASSES. They always argue with me, give me the wrong part, and then argue with me when I return it. Thank God they don't sell much for my Speed so I don't have to deal with them on a regular basis.
 
I know of a handful of places that can do tire changes....

Had my 19s redone due to Sears.....
 
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