First Texas Honda

harrison310 on 12/06/2010

I took my 04 Honda Element to this dealership after I bought it pre-owned from a non-Honda dealership. In fact, I took the Element in because of a TSB issued on the car - a widely reported problem here on Edmunds as well as in the Element community - the driver's seat rocked and could eventually come unanchored. The 1st Service Advisor told me that Honda did not pay for TSB repairs (though the Element Forum reported that many dealers got Honda good will money toward this very TSB.) I asked to talk to the Service Manager, and this advisor told me that the Manager would be unsympathetic because I didn't buy the car from their dealership! This service advisor also told me that one of my tires was damaged - something to do with the inner belt. Since the tires were relatively new, I told him i was going to take the Element back to Discount Tire and replace the faulty tire. The advisor gave me a piece of paper, indicating which of the tires was bad. When I took the car to Discount Tire, they inspected that tire and found nothing wrong with it. The inspected the other tires, and ended up replacing a different tire. I asked Discount to call this Honda service advisor, and he suggested that he may have pointed out the wrong tire to me because they had rotated the tires! I wrote up this experience and left 3 messages for the Service Manager. Eventually, he called me back - when I emailed me and cc'd the dealership owner. He called to apologize, applied for a Honda "good will" toward the TSB, and eventually gave me a credit for future service. This was my first Honda and I was very disappointed because I thought Honda's were reliable and that their dealers were great. Definitely don't offer the level of service as Volvo or Caddy dealers do.