Dealerships reluctance to carry out work on my Honda

[Fei2022]

I don't know if anyone else on this forum has ever had seriously bad Dealership experiences when taking their car in to get serviced.

When I purchased my 95 Prelude from a private owner the service book showed a PERFECT history FULL of Dealership stamps. To check if they were genuine I dyno'd the car and found it STILL made 185bhp at the crank and 143bhp at the wheel!!

Buoyed up by this I decided that took keep up the cars value I would contribute to have it serviced at my local dealership, Western Honda. However, when I took the vehicle in for a service the last thing I expected was the garage to change my oil, inspect the car and charges me £492!! I could have done that myself!!

The spark plugs,air filter, fuel filter had not been changed, the radiator coolant had not been flushed and changed, valve and idling speed timing had not been adjusted, brakes and handbrake travel had not been checked and adjusted either. Ironically the charged me for a cabin filter, something which my 1995 never left the factory with (Mark V onwards had them)

Previous vehicles to date I have carried out all minor servicing needs of my cars.

I had also asked if they would see if they can check the 4WS and ABS, then tell me what's wrong with it, as I didn't have a machine to get the blink codes confirmed.

Honda did not give me this information.

I complained to the manager about the whole debacle and he agreed for me to bring the car back in and they would take a look again.

They spent half a day with it and returned with the advice that the codes didn't match up to what they were expecting. (Apparently multiple codes were found).

So no further forward.

I now have grave concerns about taking it to this multi city dealership in future. It just feels they are washing their hands of classic cars, such as my Prelude, because of the increased drive to electrify cars and kill ICE engines.

If I were to sell this car on I would still want the service history to be perfect. Unless I find a different dealership that is more sympathetic towards servicing and maintainance of my classic car off looks like I will have to do at much as I can and then take the car to an independent garage to complete the work I do not have enough experience for.

[Trevor]

Sorry to hear you've had such a bad experience but I do believe that most dealers most definitely do not have the customers' interests at heart.

I would take it to a reputable independent garage in the future and stick with them

Most jobs on the early Honda's were easy enough to carry out and with the correct maintenance can go on for decades without any issues

[Fei2022]

Agreed. I usually do oil and air filter change, coolant and oil changes, washer top up, spark plugs, bulb changes, radiator flushes etc. It's just sad that my service record will take the hit as a result of essentially poor parenting on behalf of Honda

[jimbojim]

Hi all - Find a good independant garage with a good reputation and stick with them !