Tales from the Stealership

[G.Irish]

So my Dad's 2003 Civic LX was up for its 30k mi maintenance. He had scheduled Sheehy Honda in Alexandria to do the work, and I was supposed to drop it off and pick it up while he was in Panama visiting my grandmother.

Suspicious as I am of dealerships in general, I called to ask how much it would cost. '$450.' Are you effing kidding me?! Keep in mind that all of the new Hondas are not scheduled to get a major tuneup until over 100k mi.

Alright, so I asked him what is included with that. Transmission fluid flush, brake inspection, air filter, oil and oil filter, and some miscellaneous stuff that was unnecessary. Fine, I bought the stuff and did everything myself. Turns out I happened to look at the owner's manual and the transmission fluid change isn't even due either...

The Problem
The other thing my dad needed checked on his car was the rear brakes. They had been making a grinding noise for awhile, ever since he left the parking brake on one day. They're drum brakes so at first I figured it'd just be easier to just have the dealership do it, it couldn't be that expensive right?

The Overcharge
Well I took the car to Hendrick Honda (Woodbridge) this time to get an estimate.

Service writer: 'Well the brakes have hotspots on 'em so we're gonna need to replace them. The total with labor is going to be $642.'

Me: Ok, can you break that down by parts and price for me?

Well they wanted to replace the drums, shoes, and wheel cylinders for both rear brakes. 'F that' I said, I'll get on thepartsbin.com, order the OEM parts myself, and do everything myself.

I was able to purchase all but the brake drums for $180 total. With the new parts in hand I went over to RJ's to take on the unpleasant task of fooling with drum brakes.

The Solution
After some hammering and finagling we were looking at the surface of the brake shoes and both sets had at least 60-70% of the pad materila left (compared to the new ones we had). The surface of the used shoes did look shiny and glazed and RJ suggested that maybe we should just sand down the surface of the shoes and the drums and see if that stops the noise. Sure enough, that was the solution, and it costed...$0 in parts.

I mean damn, if the dealership techs are too stupid or underhanded to diagnose that problem the rip off problem is much worse than I had imagined :?

How about your stealership stories? (I'm sure this thread is gonna get long...)

[.RJ]

F drum brakes :lol:

[HAULN-SS]

Drum brakes arent easier to change than disk? YOu just gotta have one of those things for pulling the springs out..gravy

[G.Irish]

Disc is like, remove bolt, flip caliper up, remove pad. No hammering or finagling required. Only hard part is pushing the piston back in. I'll take that over drums anyday, but admittedly a spring remover thingy probably would've made it much much easier.

[Andy]

Needle nose vice grips make drum brakes a little easier. Rusty, old drum brakes are just about the worst thing to fool with on a car especially when one of those springs pops loose and hits you in the hand.

[Beej]

I had my rear bumper resprayed at a bodyshop associated with a dealer (which I regret, but it all went relatively well), and they said they would take it over to the 'mechanical' shop for free.

They come back telling me my 36k maintenance is due, and the total was $650. I asked what that was, and they said it was to examine like 30 things, oil change, and new front tires (which were pretty much due). It makes me sad to think of how many people fall for that crap...

[.RJ]

Drum brakes arent easier to change than disk?

No way... its a dayum springloaded jigsaw puzzle

Then again, I think carbs are some sort of black magic v00d00....

[lillitnn92]

Needle nose vice grips make drum brakes a little easier.

HA!! don't tell my friend that.

i was pushing spring back on while he was holding and it slipped. slipped right off and up-wards toward his face. put a nice little hole in his cheek or lip, can't remember exact location.

[Evan]

exact same thing happened to allison with her integra

she went in for a 30k service, they tacked on a bunch of extra crap (that I told her not to do but she did anyway), then told her she needed new rear brakes and quoted something outrageous.

I said Ill do the brakes, easy as pie. Rear rotors and pads for that car are dirt cheap. I pull the wheels off and the pads arent even half gone. 50k miles later and they STILL arent done. Rotors were fine too, barely a lip at all.

f*** honda

[JohnC]

Not a dealership story, but a shop in Charlottesville failed our old VW for inspection, and quoted me over $800 for two tires, front brakes (pads/rotors), and an accessory belt. I thought that was pretty rediculous.

[ScottyB]

VW/Audi stealerships are the worst. it's bad enough that the parts alone are pricey but they charge outrageous prices just to read your damn CEL's.

i got my clutch/rear main seal/oil changed for 500 less than the stealership charged me to simply do the clutch alone.

[Ryan T]

My mom took her Corvette to the dealership to get an inspection sticker and she had a front turn single out. He quoted her at something like $45 to change the light because they had to put it up on a lift and take the splash guard off and some other shit, so she told them no. Came home and told me, I raised her headlight up, stuck my hand down in there, took the bulb out. All of ten seconds.

[HAULN-SS]

I have to take the front clip of my car to change the headlights....and it's an 86. What a pain in the ass.

[Jeff]

Drum brakes are nothing special. They just require a bit more patience then discs, and the tool is called a "brake spoon." Rear brakes are not a service item until much later in life; they incur much less wear then the fronts. Even when the shoes do come due, why not just get the drums turned or something? Glazed brakes causing a squeak is not something to replace all brake components for, I have no idea why they were trying to do that other then to hustle some money from you. Keep in mind also that a transmission flush is a good thing to have done around 60,000 miles (as you said, they were talking about it too soon), and it requires a machine to do it. This machine costs a couple thousand dollars. Saying you ÔÇ£did it all yourselfÔÇØ regarding a transmission flush is not totally accurate. You simply changed a little more then half of the fluid in the tranny.

100,000mile service on a Honda  If you plan to seriously follow the book and do the tune up at 100,000you have lost touch with reality. That is car company jive to keep people from bitching about maintenance costs and keep calling Hondas the most durable cars in the world. The technology is getting rather amazing, but spark plugs, wires, and the related items (which isnt much any more) are just not 100,000mile type things.


Also, another thing that pisses me off about people bitching about dealerships is how little MOST people know about what the franchisers do to the dealers. The dealers are just passing on the level of F#@Katude given to them by their company. Chevy is really bad these days. They are loosing ground to Toyota and are taking it out on the dealers. I know the owner of our local Chevy dealer and he has told my father and I how wonderful he gets to take it in the butt from GM. Chrysler passes it on to us too. I mean really...why MAKE us buy paper service manuals AND make us buy the online manuals... Why make the scan tools cost $10,000...and still suck so much we have to get a MATCO Determinator to really find problems. And thats not all; try explaining to a customer that the ONLY fluid that will work in their transmission is proprietary to Chrysler and costs $13 a qt. Its the truth though....and as mad as people get...it is. Now I don't know about Honda and how they work their dealers. I would imagine it is little different. I just see it from both sides. I have done business with other places; I have done business as a customer with our place and there are times when I get angry about how much I pay. But then I think about what it takes to run the thing, and I realize that for the most part, the prices are fair for the work quality and the backup of the work. There is much more overhead to running a dealer then a mom & pop place, which is why the prices tend to be higher. The large dealers dont care as much about the customers, small dealerships must. We havent been around for 80 years by telling people they need whole new rear brakes at 30,000miles. Try to find an 80 year old Honda dealer in the UShell try to find a 50y/o one! (Oldest Google turned up was in Washington state est. in 1971) Maybe there in lies the problem, there are no truly customer oriented dealers anymore.alas.tangent = over.

[ViPER1313]

$13 for a plastic gas tank release clip from a Ford dealership.

1st and last time I ever took a car to a shop (to get the SHO inspected), I was charged ~$750 for an exhaust, inspection, 1 outer TRE and "headlight adjusters" - how the hell plastic and metal screws need replacing still beats the hell out of me :evil: . The best part is that the headlight adjusters added up to about $150 / 2hrs labor. I just replaced the entire front end of the 89' this weekend in about an hour. Even if they were stripped out (which the shop probably did if they were), replacement procedure is:

**Remove clips holding light to car (piece of wire through hole in top and all 3 were off in about 2 minutes.)
**Remove wires (45 seconds)
**Twist 3 old adjusters out (1 minute to find wrench, 1 minute on light)
**Twist 3 new adjusters 90 degrees into light (1 minute)
**Insert light assemblies onto car with saved clips - 3 minutes
**Do this to both sides in 30 minutes (liberal estimate) then aim lights (15 minutes)

As I said, last time I took my car to a shop to get work done.

[WRXtranceformed]

I've never bothered taking either of my cars to the dealership for service because they would be like "Um, we can't work on this because it is no longer a Subaru."

[.RJ]

100,000mile service on a Honda  If you plan to seriously follow the book and do the tune up at 100,000you have lost touch with reality. That is car company jive to keep people from bitching about maintenance costs and keep calling Hondas the most durable cars in the world. The technology is getting rather amazing, but spark plugs, wires, and the related items (which isnt much any more) are just not 100,000mile type things.

What tech do you have to back this up? Are 7500 mile oil change intervals bad too, then?

Sounds just like the dealership gibberish they are feeding to customers.

[Feersty]

This is exactly the thread I needed to read because I was about to take my car to the dealership because the battery light came on.

[Kaan]

Ok so when i was growing up, my parents decided to get a mini van so we go to a local dealer (for legal reasons i can name the dealer... it was part of the deal). They buy a 1995 Dodge Caravan off the used car lot. My parents have a trusty old mechanic they take their cars to... and about 6 months after they bought it they took it in for some service... and then the phone call.

"Sir did you know that the carvan you guys bought it peiced together?"
"ummm let me get my dad on the phone"
- i guess i sound like my dad on the phone..............

come to find out via a lawyer or two... this caravan was peiced together from two... welded the front half of one onto the back half of another... repainted... moved through several states to change titles... then moved back to VA with a CLEAN va title. Yes my parents got some money from them for fraud... the judge ordered the dealer to take possetion of the car, and provide proof of it being destroyed.

needless to say, my parents dont have any dealings with a dealership at all. they buy private used cars after they are inspected by the old mechanic guy...

[Andy]

This is exactly the thread I needed to read because I was about to take my car to the dealership because the battery light came on.

It's your charging system light. Most of the time, it'syour alternator. Either you've got a bad connection or your alternator crapped out.

How many miles are on your Focus? Is it still under warranty?