Another update on the Honda Civ issue

Apparently I am a squeaky wheel about to get greased.

So you remember from this and this about my 2007 Honda Civix EX’s defective rear upper control arm, which in turn jacked up my alignment and therefore my rear tires, right? And how the dealer said Honda wasn’t paying for it because my car was no longer under warranty, even though it is a part that has been defective since Day 1, not something that has gone wrong due to the number of miles on the vehicle?

And remember how I called Honda and was told that sometimes they do pay for stuff like this, but I needed the service bulletin number for them to look it up and so I had to call Reddell and get it, and then when I called Honda back, the bitch who was “helping” me said there was nothing they could do, the car was out of warranty and too bad that the part was defective when I bought the car? And how I was all, “Look bitch, I paid $20k for a car that I was told was NOT defective, and now you’re telling me that it is defective but you’re not going to fix it and where’s Ralph Nader because I’m pretty sure that violates some kind of lemon law.”

And she was all, “Well I can’t help you” and I was all “Then forward me to your supervisor or someone who can because this is bullshit” and she was all “Fine I’ll take down your info but you probably won’t hear from us til after the holidays.”

And then on Dec. 22 a nice man named Tony left me a voicemail at work telling me that apparently I had raised enough of a ruckus that they assigned me a case manager, and he was it, and he was going to be reviewing my case and would call me back after the holidays.

So today I got a call from Nice Man Tony asking me if Jim the service adviser from Reddell had called me back yet, and I said no (all the while picturing him sitting on his stool glaring at Ian and I from across the service department while Eric, our service rep, went to ask him on our behalf exactly why we should have to pay for this issue when it was obviously a Honda problem). Nice Man Tony sounded sounded surprised that Jim hadn’t called me, and he told me that he was going to make a quick call and I would be hearing back from him shortly.

About 20 minutes later I received a call from Eric at Reddell letting me know that Honda is going to pay for the repair. And not just the defective rear control arm. They are also going to pay for the alignment my car needs because their defective rear control arm jacked it up. The only thing they’re not going to pay for is new rear tires. But in all honestly, I was expecting to buy new tires sooner rather than later anyway since the tread is getting pretty low.

Ha, but Eric says, “And the tires are $139.99,” to which I replied, “Well that’s OK, I can get tires for cheaper anywhere else so I’ll just bring the car in to you guys for the repair.”

No fucking way am I paying $300 for TWO tires. Especially when I can get comparable tires at Sears for probably just a little more than half the price. Plus they do that $5 per tire roadside assistance thing that’s pretty sweet.

Anyway, I scheduled an appointment with Honda to bring the Civ in on Jan. 17 to get the repairs done. Let’s hope they aren’t so pissed off at me that they screw something else up just so they can still get money out of me. Although they should be getting reimbursed from Honda for the repair so they should still be happy. Though I bet they were inflating the price JUST A TAD when they thought I was going to be rolling over and vomiting up the money to them.

So, yay. This saves me anywhere from $300 – $450, depending on what I get the tires for at Sears.

I think this calls for a celebratory “I fought the car dealer and I fucking WON” beer, don’t you think?

Technorati tags: Honda, 2007 Civic, rear control arm, defect

~ by Megan on January 8, 2009.