Lia Honda Woes

NYSpeed Automotive
1

I will give a brief timeline and try to stick to the facts only.

November 2006 - I purchashed a 2007 Civic Si coupe from Lia
April 2007 - Myself and Carnut installed an AEM CAI on the car
March 2008 - check engine light pops on.

The car was/is throwing a P0113 Air Intake Temp Sensor Voltage High code. essentially the air intake temperature sensor is busted. fine, it should be warranteed…

So, I call Lia Honda last thursday night, explain the code, explain that there is a CAI on the car, and ask if they will still honor the warranty. The tech, Jim, said absolutely, make an appointment and bring it in, there is no reason your intake would cause the sensor to go bad.

fine

so i bring the car in the next day. the service manager calls me at noon and says “you have an intake, you voided your warranty - the new sensor will cost 150, installation is 90, and diagnosis is 90”. I then told him that i refused to pay anything, and that i would replace the sensor myself; furthermore, i would never have brought the car in if i thought the warranty wouldn’t be honored, which is why i called an explained the stuation to Jim the previous day (i was dealing with Mike at this point).

he continues to tell me there is nothing he can do, says he will offer me 10% off the diagnosis cost. I tell him im not paying anything because i was misled in order to get me to bring the car in. he gets frustrated with me, tells me to pick the car up, and he wont charge me anything. YAY! the 1st good customer service so far!

fastforward to the past few days. the car has been shifting very sluggish. this morning, i had to grind it to get it into 2nd, which was very disturbing. so i get the car to work, pop the hood, and check the shift linkage… THE GODDAMN WIRING HARNESS GOING TO THE AIT SENSOR WAS WRAPPED AROUND THE SHIFT LINKAGE!!!111!!111!!!

i almost shit a brick. i called up lia, and told Mike, service manager, that whoever worked on my car had not secured the wiring harness in its stock location around the shift linkage and that it was tangled. he really had no response, offered to have a tech look at the car, to which i promptly responded i would fix it myself.

complete bullshit.

i will never buy a car from Lia again. I cant stand their service department, and they absolutely no follow up customer service skills.

2

sounds like a typical dealership. sorry. hope you get everything taken care of.

3

a lot of delars will pull that shit. just make sure you keep all the oem parts and just put them back on before having it serviced

4

ouch…sorry to hear bro that sucks. hope you get everything taken care of and not have to deal with their bullshit. good luck

5

That sucks
Then again, its your fault for telling them you put a CAI on it.

Good luck

6

im not so worried about the sensor… i can probably get it for 100 bucks and slap in on myself (in 5 minutes time).

im pissed that i was told it was going to be covered, then dicked around, then they tried to charge me to diagnose something i alread diagnosed for them!

THEN, they didnt secure the wiring harness and it was getting tangled in my frigging shift linkage!

thats why im pissed… of course i would have liked to them to warranty the sensor, because it should be warranteed, but im more pissed about the peripheral shit.

7

why would a CAI void that?? from not putting back right?

8

I worked there for 2 years. The service manager (Dave Hoffman) is the biggest asshole I have ever worked for. Doesn’t surprise me.

9

sorry to hear that man, lia is a shady dealership. I was looking at a car there about 5 years ago that obviusly had a serious accident at some point in its life. The broad sword up and down that it hadn’t and by a stroke of luck, knew the husband of a lady working in the office and she confirmed that it had been close to totalled before it was traded in.

Id cut your losses and move on. Maybe write the manager a letter explaining the situation along with a complaint to the BBB

10

this isn’t the dealerships fault… its the techs fault for not doing his job properly and securing your harness back where it should have been. Its the dealerships fault they didn’t follow up with you and didn’t communicate amongst themselves (Jim telling Mike he said to bring it in and it shouldn’t be a problem)

good luck, though

11

i respectfully disagree with your first statement :smiley:

it’s the dealership’s responsibility to properly train their techs and service managers so they deal with customers in a consistent and reasonable manner. it is the dealership’s responsibility to honor statements made by a technician to a customer. it is a dealership’s responsiblity to make sure that a car is driveable (and not damaging itself) when it is returned to a customer.

im just glad they won’t be touching my car EVER again.

12

my girl just bought a spec v and has had the motor swapped 3 times.first time.it was rodknocking 3 days after she got it.2nd motor was burning oil because of a cracked sleeve they told us.and third motor.took it for an oil change and they didnt tightnt the drain plug good enough and it fell out.then shit fell out of my pant leg

13

i will never do business with Lia ever again after some nonsense i had with them too.
(mine was related to sales though)

good luck with your situation. :tspry:

14

The service manager’s name is Dave H. He is a good dude. Talk to him, he is not the typical dealership knucklehead. I’m shocked you had a problem. 2 of the service writers are Chris and Jerry also both good guys.

15

hrm, maybe i should have asked if people knew who to ask for before i went… oh well, hindsight is 20/20… too late now, i wouldn’t want to bring my car there for any reason ever again.

16

i agree with you here but my point was that we don’t always have total control over what the employees do. we do have control over firing them when they act like complete asshats though. I think in this case they just need some training on how to properly take care of a customer and how to communicate with each other. I think they definitely screwed up, its fixable so it shouldn’t happen again, but it cost them a customer.

i’m always sad to hear about people being screwed by dealers because it really hurts the rest of us and gives all dealers a bad reuptation

17

based upon the good i have heard about your group, i wouldnt worry about this particular rotten apple spoiling the whole group… :tup: people will know if you go out of your way to service your customers well.

if they wanted to make it up to me, they could have just said, screw it, we will warranty this for you and give you the benefit of the doubt. instead, they took the short term easy route, and did nothing. so thats why im trashing them on here :smiley:

18

now if they would only learn that lesson…

19

That is insane.Typical for some dealerships unfortunately. He got you in the door that was his plan. However when you dropped the vehicle off for service. Did you sign anything? If so was there a actual price on the piece of paper you signed. It is standard procedure everywhere to have you sign a work order before. Without permission from you they cannot force you to pay anything. I think it is a little ridiculous to nickel and dime you like that.Its a fucking intake intake. You cannot prove that was the cause of the dis functioning parts. It is not like you went and lowered the vehicle then tried to warranty the struts through the dealer when they blow.

20

is this temp sensor something on the manifold or did it have to be installed in the new intake?