Morganton Honda

by Ellen on 04/28/2021

Bought an older used Ridgeline, drove the truck home back to Asheville area. Next day, husband drove the truck on some errands around town and noticed a metal on metal scraping and rattling sound at slower speeds and going over bumps. Took it to Apple Tree Honda as they are the closest "official" Honda place to us - they said it was a good thing we brought it in because it could have become a dangerous situation. They found that the front rotors did not match one another, that one of them was installed backwards, and the brake line had got caught up somehow and gotten a kink in it, as well as the calipers missing a slide pin bolt. Admittedly I was flabbergasted that whatever Morganton Honda's "safety" and approval inspections are, to determine putting something on the lot for sale, did not appear to include a more thorough examination to the whole braking system! Apple Tree did the work because it did not otherwise seem safe to get it back down to Morganton, plus at that point I was feeling a bit skeptical of the Morganton service center's thoroughness and skill. I called Morganton that day to lodge a complaint. Next day a woman in charge of their business reputation/PR etc... got in touch with me and said she would try her best to make sure I was satisfied, but that it may be difficult due to it being a used "as is" vehicle, and them not having been the ones to do the work since I took it to Apple Tree. A couple days of back and forth phone calls ensued as she was investigating the details of what all had happened. Morganton assured that they were not the ones to have installed the rotor incorrectly. But they admitted that their level of inspection for general used vehicles is not as thorough as for their "certified pre-owned" line - consequently they only inspected how much brake pad was left and that the brakes worked, and that was as far as it went. They did not disassemble anything to get a good look at the rotors, so they did not know it was an issue. I wager there are people at Morganton Honda who possibly did not want to offer any recompense at all, so whether its a testament to this woman's role, or a testament to the business on principle not wanting to look bad on ANY sale they just made, used or not - I was finally able to come to some agreement on assistance. Something was better than nothing, given that I had the issue occur right after getting the car home - and one would think that buying from a large dealership would come with more thorough inspection. I encouraged for future reference it would be good practice to thoroughly inspect the whole braking system, rotors and all, especially on used vehicles, for the safety of their customers. Why risk potential accident/injury/death over something which could have been relatively quickly taken care of ahead of time had they just looked closer? All in all I don't discourage purchase from Morganton Honda, but if buying used (from anywhere really), be sure to get VERY thorough detail of everything that was inspected, and to what extent it was inspected. Because clearly one can't assume that just because its a big, well known dealership, that they wouldn't possibly let something leave the lot that otherwise would have and should have been fixed on site before sale. Lesson learned.

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by Franksustr on 12/27/2015

Horrible!!!! They sale lemon cars. My car stopped working 2 hours after i bought it. Called them back and Ken told me I am lying because I dont want the car. The car clearly has issues. It stopped working 3 more time since than. Called them again they told they dont have time to talk to me! Then Steve called back and said you bought extended warranty so I have nothing to talk to you about and hung up. I called back and ask to speak with him, left voicemails but no response. They have my money now so the will not talk to me. Horrible, horrible dealership if this is what Honda puts their name on they should be ashamed!!! Don't waste your time and energy! They just want your money!!!

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