Well since posting I've written my letter, it is still 1st draft but I'm so mad about this it has to be done, first to dealer principal and then on from there, quite long but bear with me on this
Since I have had ownership of the above car I have been a frequent customer of your after sales service department, so much so I now feel I have to write to you to get some explanation of the problems I have had with my car and the service I have received.
I appreciate that my car wasn’t purchased from your showroom, but was however, purchased from your dealer group, which is why I am starting with you as my first point of official contact.
If you care to look up the history of visits my car has had at your service department you might start to see some sort of pattern emerging, I think the best thing to do is list this visits a best I can and hope your staff have kept a detailed record. In no particular order as follows……
1)
HFT system was not responding properly to voice commands and frequent complaints from people I was talking to that they couldn’t hear me properly. Visit to service resulted in “no fault found”. After some considerable research from my self with other owners and Honda I found that there was a general fault and fix and got a name of someone in technical at Honda UK that I could quote. Went back and your staff were able to contact Honda UK and got an official fix. 2 visits.
2)Front suspension was making a squeaking noise when going over speed bumps and had to drive very slowly over them. Brought the car in for check and road test. “No fault found”. Again did some research with several other Civic owners and after persistent noise I booked in again. Suspension was missing the bump stops and had to be replaced, booked in and replaced. 3 visits.
3)Front Pad at first service highlighted as needing replacement shortly, surprised at this considering the mileage I do on the motorway outside of normal congestion hours but took advice. Booked in and had replaced at 16k miles or there about. No excessive wear mentioned for rear pads. Note this information for later.
4)Noticed a slight metal on metal noise and booked in for check “No fault found”. Noise got worse very quickly so booked in again, rear pads had worn 100% and damaged the discs after 18k miles. Very surprised at this as rear brakes do about 20% of the work usually. Parts not in stock and had to leave car there, staff ready to take my money for the work. Went away and did some research again and called ***** ***** asking for this problem to be double checked as something is not right. Only 1 pad had worn 100% as it was not seated in the calliper properly, not picked up on the first service either. Had to wait 2 weeks without my car for replacement parts. Steve did a good job in getting hire car for me and Honda UK agreed to pay for all of it as it was a defect and inconvenience to myself. 3 visits.
5)Car due 25k mile service so booked in for today, mentioned when booking about a metal on metal noise coming from the brakes once they had warmed up a bit and was told a note would be made. Dropped car off this morning and mentioned again the noise and checked that a road test would be completed under investigation. Received a call this afternoon to say that the service was complete and that no fault was found. Paid my money and asked if road test was completed, “Yes sir it has and is usually with a 25k mile service” Problem here is that my trip computer had 157.8 miles when I left it off and 157.9 when I picked it up!!!!! 100 yards not much of a road test I think you would agree. Spoke to ***** ***** on service reception and didn’t have any idea that the test wasn’t completed or why it wasn’t. Asked if I’d like to book it in again. 2 Visits.
I think you would agree about a pattern emerging here of the number of times I have to come down in my precious time and wait around for things that should have been done first time.
Now back to point 3, this service highlighted that my front pads had worn 20%, nothing unusual about that, but that was after 9k miles from the first set being replaced. Now simple maths would say that would give me roughly 40k miles, give or take a few thousand, which is considerably more than the first set which had worn at 16k miles and a rear set at 18k miles. So at several visits down the line and £85 worse off for front pads you can now see there was something wrong, so how should I look at this?!?! Was I conned in to buying new pads? Was there mechanical service far below what I’m sure you and Honda UK would expect? Or was there something fundamentally wrong with the pads for them to have worn so quickly?
You can see now why I am showing my concern to you at a lack of service far below what I expected from someone holding Honda’s flag and how the “Power of dreams” has turned into a nightmare.
So you can see that I distrust what I have now been told in the past based on the fact that I have been lied to today about the road test on my car and that no fault was found, what else have I not been told the truth about??? More importantly the safety of my family and I as the main visits were related to brakes and suspension.
So what happens now? I’ll give you some time to get some information together to be able to respond to my concerns and see if there is a need to progress this further, also what you are prepared to do to satisfy me that my custom, my car and my family’s safety are safe in your hands.
Looking forward to your quick response.
There you go, did you read it all?