Afternoon folks.
Just a letting off steam post really.
So; a month ago Spamette Major's 2000 Civic refuses to start, immobilser problem according to dash light. 'Luckily' this happens round the corner from a Honda main dealer, so they take it in and confirm that there is a problem and the ECU/immobilser needs replacing at around 300 notes. 2 week lead time on part. They give her a 12 plate Civic to run around in whilst the part is on order.
2 weeks later and they find that they've ordered the wrong part. Correct part is on 12 week lead time, and they not unreasonably want their courtesy car back. Spamette Major is not happy......
So, she Googles the fault symptoms and comes across a very similar fault on a Honda forum that has been fixed by entering some code or other into the ECU via the diagnostic terminal. She prints it out and hands it in to the dealer. 3 days later they deign to try it......and it works! Car starts fine every time.
Not sure whether to laugh or cry now, they're still charging about 150 notes for diagnosis, despite the fact they were outsmarted by a 21 year old with no car or diagnostic experience! Well at least they admitted it I suppose.
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Well done to Spamette Major...!
I would take the matter up direct with Honda UK and ask why she should be expected to pay such an exorbitant price (if any at all) for the diagnosis work in view of the sheer incompetence of one of its own main dealerships?
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Reminds me of when I was in the car tuning game ... the pain dealers had all the diagnostic equipment,
but didn't know how to use it properly.
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Dealer diagnosed wrongly - and they still want money for it? While they did do diagnosis work the actual conclusion was wrong and they ordered the wrong part too.
Seconded the suggestion of getting onto Honda UK.
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What would be reasonable?
I understand your frustration. BUT, is £150 for having done some investigation work into a tricky computer fault on a thirteen year old car - and then having fixed the problem - really terribly expensive? At a main dealer too.
Best of all, it's half the price of the expected bill.
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Tell them that if they charge her anything how they would like to be reported in a newspaper?
Keep few contact details handy from news sites, whatcar etc. as a backup.
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I suppose it depends what the fix is - is it a "proper" fix, or is it, for example. a code which disables the immobiliser?
If it's a recognised proper fix then I wouldn't want to pay the dealer. They're supposed to be the experts and they'd have cheerfully taken £1000 off the customer if that's how much the ECU had cost.
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Was the courtesy car FOC? You'd struggle to rent one for a fortnight for less than £150 I would have thought.
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Invoice them £160, for professional advice?
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The cynics among us might suggest that they knew the issue could be resolved by a code, but that a new immobiliser unit brought extra margin.
There was a lot of anecdotal evidence Ford dealers were doing something similar charging big bucks for cylinder head work to resolve the "sticking valves" problem on the early Zetec engines which strangely produced very similar symptoms to a split in a £4 rubber vacuum pipe...
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>> Was the courtesy car FOC? You'd struggle to rent one for a fortnight for less
>> than £150 I would have thought.
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Yes, it was FoC, but then they offered it rather than her demanding it. Agreed a hire car for a fortnight or so would've cost more than the (reduced) repair bill.
She went into the dealer in person at lunchtime, and it looks like they've pretty much waived most if not all of the bill for investigation. The car needed a new battery anyway (and endless attempts at starting it with the immobilser activated had finished it off) which is 85 quid including fitting - hardly a bargain but seems quite reasonable for a main dealer. ..and they're supplying a duplivate key for 60 quid ish including coding, which again is reasonable....and a 'free' valet.
It's just that she's only avoided a big bill (and weeks of having no car) from the so called profesisonals by her own investigation work, and that leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.
I've no idea what this magic code does, but I don't think it disables the immobiliser. The dealer says you can't disable the immobilser anyway, but then I don't exactly vlaue their technical competence at this point in time!
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>> I've no idea what this magic code does
Could just be as simple as a "reset" instruction, telling it to rebaseline all the sensors. Prise the link out of Spamette and have a look at what was said on the original thread.
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>> Was the courtesy car FOC? You'd struggle to rent one for a fortnight for less
>> than £150 I would have thought.
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It wouldn't have been needed if they'd identified the fix themselves.
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I definitely think the gracious thing for them to do would be to refund you, given that
(a) they were happy to take £300 off you unnecessarily, and
(b) you have taught them something they should have known or been able to find out for themselves.
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I'd send them a bill for technical consultancy services
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Honda Civic Coupe - this week's result - Google 1 : Main Dealer 0 - Stuartli
