News article in the Philadelphia weekly!!
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News article in the Philadelphia weekly!!
Carmakers Should Stand Behind Their Products
Dear Tom and Ray:
I'm a service manager at a Honda dealership, and I read your recent article about a Civic's rear main seal leaking at 53,000 miles. Your advice was just about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. You want the customer to tell the Honda service rep that Hondas shouldn't have that problem, so he ought to fix it for free? So I guess the three-year/36,000-mile warranty means nothing, and Honda should just fix their cars under warranty no matter what the mileage? Have you guys ever worked in a dealership? And you're saying that no Civics have ever had a rear main seal leak before 100,000 miles? Where did you get that information? You guys make it hard for a good dealership to keep its service business with statements like this.
Jeff
RAY: Jeff, we're printing your letter in the interest of fairness, but we stand by our previous statements. What we said was that we've never had a Civic in our shop with less than 100,000 miles that had a blown rear main seal. And we've worked on hundreds, if not thousands, of Civics in nearly 30 years. So that's where our information comes from.
TOM: The reason people buy Hondas, and the reason we recommend Hondas, is that they're very, very reliable cars. Stuff like this doesn't usually happen.
RAY: So if somebody buys a Honda because of the company's reputation for reliability and then has an unexpected, expensive problem early in the car's life, if I'm Honda, I rush in and say: "I'm sorry, that never should have happened. We'll fix that for you."
TOM: Honda may decide not to do that. That's its call. You're a Honda dealer, and you may decide not to advocate for the customer in a case like this. That's your call. But if you do jump in and help, my guess is that you'll have a customer for life, and a great spokesperson out there talking about how well she was taken care of.
RAY: And if Honda's reputation is deserved, it can certainly afford to fix the rare car that has a defect.
TOM: We didn't guarantee the customer that Honda would respond positively. In fact, we even suggested that she seek a second opinion, because we feared the car might have been misdiagnosed (again, based on our experience). But we still think it's the right approach.
RAY: Sometimes adversity is actually opportunity, Jeff.
Dear Tom and Ray:
I'm a service manager at a Honda dealership, and I read your recent article about a Civic's rear main seal leaking at 53,000 miles. Your advice was just about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. You want the customer to tell the Honda service rep that Hondas shouldn't have that problem, so he ought to fix it for free? So I guess the three-year/36,000-mile warranty means nothing, and Honda should just fix their cars under warranty no matter what the mileage? Have you guys ever worked in a dealership? And you're saying that no Civics have ever had a rear main seal leak before 100,000 miles? Where did you get that information? You guys make it hard for a good dealership to keep its service business with statements like this.
Jeff
RAY: Jeff, we're printing your letter in the interest of fairness, but we stand by our previous statements. What we said was that we've never had a Civic in our shop with less than 100,000 miles that had a blown rear main seal. And we've worked on hundreds, if not thousands, of Civics in nearly 30 years. So that's where our information comes from.
TOM: The reason people buy Hondas, and the reason we recommend Hondas, is that they're very, very reliable cars. Stuff like this doesn't usually happen.
RAY: So if somebody buys a Honda because of the company's reputation for reliability and then has an unexpected, expensive problem early in the car's life, if I'm Honda, I rush in and say: "I'm sorry, that never should have happened. We'll fix that for you."
TOM: Honda may decide not to do that. That's its call. You're a Honda dealer, and you may decide not to advocate for the customer in a case like this. That's your call. But if you do jump in and help, my guess is that you'll have a customer for life, and a great spokesperson out there talking about how well she was taken care of.
RAY: And if Honda's reputation is deserved, it can certainly afford to fix the rare car that has a defect.
TOM: We didn't guarantee the customer that Honda would respond positively. In fact, we even suggested that she seek a second opinion, because we feared the car might have been misdiagnosed (again, based on our experience). But we still think it's the right approach.
RAY: Sometimes adversity is actually opportunity, Jeff.