| Kanuck |
I just wanted to warn people here in the Denver Metro area about my recent experience with Courtesy Acura.
It all started last fall. I've had Michelin Cross-terrain tires (bought at Sears) for about two years and then last year I started experiencing vibration in the steering wheel at speeds above 60mph. I thought it was your typical balancing issue so I brought the car to Sears and had them balance them again. It was a little better but still not what I was used to from my 02 Mdx. I went to Sears three more times and nobody could figure out what was wrong.
I normally do all maintenance on the car myself and I usually try to avoid dealers but I decided that this problem required some "expert" advice. I dropped off my car at Courtesy Acura and explained the problem's history and left the car with them and went to work. As I was leaving, I had that same feeling I had years ago, when I last took my car to a dealership: how are they going to try to rip me off?
I was not disappointed. The Service department called me a few hours later with their "findings":
First, they make two shocking claims: 1) ALL my tires are "out of round"; 2) they would not be able to do an alignment anyway because the adjusters are rusted. I say "shocking" because I had four different guys at Sears balance the tires and they also did an alignment recently and nobody mentioned anything.
It gets better: they tell me that my struts are leaking (which I noticed recently) and that it would cost $1300 to replace them! They said that the rear adjusters would cost another $1500 to replace. They also did a "courtesy" inspection and found that my brakes were making noise and that, if I do the other two things, they would ONLY charge me $400 to cut the front rotors and replace the pads! That one made my day because I had just replaced all pads with Akebono ceramic pads about a month ago and the brakes are solid.
Anyway, this post is getting a bit long but I wanted to warn people in the area. I will look for a third party to give me an estimate on the struts and rear adjusters but Sears quoted me $120 per strut plus $35 for installation for a grand total of $310. Much less than the $1300 that Courtesy Acura quoted me...
If anyone knows a decent (honest may be too much to ask for) mechanic in the area, please let me know. |
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| phins2rt |
| Unbelievable!! I wonder if times are tough or if they are always like this!?!?! How many miles on your X? |
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| Kanuck |
87K. I was waiting for them to tell me I need a new transmission even if it's working fine...
I've owned a Civic, Accord, Integra and now the Mdx and I lived in Canada, NJ, Chicago and Denver and never ran into an honest Acura/Honda dealership. I have to admit Courtesy Acura is over the top compared to some of the other ones but that's pretty typical. The experience on the sale side of the deal is often just as bad. I bought the Mdx when they had long wait lists and the attitude was take it at MSRP or leave it. They have great products and they know it. |
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| JeffK |
With your documentation, this is truly outrageous.
I would do the following (of course not the "recommended" work) -if you have the time:
1) I would make an appointment with the owner and/or manager of the dealership. I do not believe this is an isolated incident. This is in all likelihood a common occurence in the service department. I would show him the documentation, including the new brakes, and the service department "recommendations."
2) Same with service manager. Maybe you should do 2 first and then 1.
3) If you do not get any satisfaction with 2 and 1, then to Acura customer car.
JeffK |
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| hammermdx |
| Another dirtbag dealer, glad to hear you took your business elsewhere!:3: |
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| ND40oz |
| Strange, I've never had a problem with Courtesy, take my teg and my MDX there for all the normal stuff. Service is usually pretty reasonable, but a little bit higher then if you didn't go to the dealer. Did you try Mile High to see what they said? |
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| proman |
I feel that dealership/service consultant is too greedy. And it's been like this for all the dealers. They want the money bad bad badly. And ripping off helpless customers is the easiest way to their goal. And they will not hesitate to give outrageous quote. And they always tell you the outrageous price in the way like "this is nothing, everyone else is paying this kind of money, it's absolutely normal, so don't question it." Especially for luxurious car dealers. That's why I rarely go to dealers to donate money. One trip to dealer, I have to donate money enough for a vacation for my whole family.
So, back to your post.
Tires, no tire is perfectly round. So, technically the dealer is right. But the question is how much off? How do they measure it? I would ask to see the numbers of measurement to make sure they are not just throw out this arbitrarily.
And, for your chattering problem, I would suspect what called "road force", in other words, the tire has defects bad enough to casue non-uniform reaction force with the road. And balance alone won't be able to fix that. Go to a tire expert for opinions/warranty claims.
Good luck. |
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| Kanuck |
ND40oz:
I didn't try Mile High. I don't know if I want to give another dealer a chance. Have you heard of 5280 Automotive? Sounds like a bunch of Honda mechanics who started their own shop. They claim they use genuine Honda parts and are much cheaper than dealers. I might give them a try.
I guess if you only go for an oil change or alignment or other "normal" stuff, their prices are ok but not great. For example, they charge $90 for an alignment while Sears charges $65. Oil changes are the same. Not a huge difference.
Where they get you is when they start adding up all the individual charges even though some of the work can be done at the same time. Here is an example of what they quoted me: I go in and ask to balance the wheels, do an alignment, check the brakes and suspension. To me, the alignment is a separate job but since they take off the wheels to balance them, they can do a visual inspection of the brakes and suspension at that time. There is no reason to charge me individually for all those items. Here's what they wanted to charge me:
$90 - alignment
$40 - oil change
$105 - check suspension and brakes
$40 - balance tires
So they quoted me $275 for about 1-2 hours of work, an oil filter and new oil. Plus, most of that time was spent trying to find problems with my car and greatly overestimate repair costs. A lot of Honda/Acura owners are DIY types. Do they think we're a bunch of idiots? They want $119 to do a simple drain of the transmission fluid. That cost me $18 in parts and 15 minutes of my time. If anything, changing the transmission fluid should be cheaper than an oil change! There is no messy filter to replace and it takes less time. That's why I usually don't bother doing the oil change myself when I can pay $30 at Grease Monkey to have it done... |
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| ND40oz |
| I've heard of 5280 but have never been there or met anyone that has used them. Might want to try them and see what they say, can't hurt. |
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| wasjr |
I agree with Jeff's comments above. The worst thing that I have encountered with my dealer is that their recommended maintenance list is a lot longer than the factory recommended list. They even do oil changes with a car wash for $24.95.
As to your tires, if your tires were out of round, you would have had the vibration from the day they were put on, it would not develop two years later. I had this occur on Goodyear Assurance tires I put on my wife's Volvo a few years ago. Vibrations would occur from about 50 mph to 75 mph. The tire shop had received a bad batch of tires. Two of the four that they put on the car were out of round and they had to go through four more to find two that were round. |
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