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Dilawri Group
- Thread starter JD Cross
- Start date
They are local to me but never heard anything about them good or bad. Maybe check Yelp?
I have used Dilawri Acura in Regina for my servicing for past 15 years and have been happy. They even loaned me some diagnostic cables so I could do some diagnostic work on my SRS problem .. and when the car is in for something, I regularly talk to the one NSX-trained mechanic they have. They have cut me some deals on some NSX parts but charge a stupid amount for Mobil 1 oil changes. We also bought a 2000 1.6 EL and a '05 TL from them and they were a little hard to deal with .. but probably no worse than other dealerships. I gather someone had put a deposit down last year on the new NSX but I can't see them being a big enough dealership to sell them. I think there are currently only 3 NSXs in Regina.
The Dilawri group is pretty big. My fuzzy recollection is that the patriarch (father or grandfather?) started acquiring dealerships across Canada and getting family members to manage them. There are a bunch of Dilawri owned dealerships in Regina (BMW, Honda, Accura, Nissan, Mitsu, Hyundai ....) and at one time they were all under one family member. They certainly share stuff (body shops) and they sent my NSX to the Hyundai service center for an alignment because of clearance issues. I don't know whether that management arrangement is still in place and I don't know how centralized their customer strategy is across Canada because of that historical 'local' management.
Like Ian, I found a few years ago that they were hard to deal with when I was negotiating on my Honda Pilot. They were spinning around on the pricing and I ended up going out of town to another dealer to do the purchase. When they found out they dropped the price and tried to get me to cancel the deal with the other dealer. That didn't do anything for me. I don't know whether the problem was the salesman or the sales manager.
As far as service goes, I have not been unhappy, although everything on the NSX has been pretty routine. I would sort of rank them a 4 or 4+ out of 5 based upon my limited experience with the NSX. Like Ian, I noted that when they offer up the Mobil 1 option, it is really pricey which always causes me to go conventional oil when they do the oil change. However, last fall when we did the oil on my NSX, Pilot and my son's RSX, we got the filters from Honda. Honda's price for the filters with a new crush washer included was less than the cost of the comparable filters from Canadian Tire. I don't know whether that is a change in pricing from Honda or a local parts manager initiative.
Like Ian, I found a few years ago that they were hard to deal with when I was negotiating on my Honda Pilot. They were spinning around on the pricing and I ended up going out of town to another dealer to do the purchase. When they found out they dropped the price and tried to get me to cancel the deal with the other dealer. That didn't do anything for me. I don't know whether the problem was the salesman or the sales manager.
As far as service goes, I have not been unhappy, although everything on the NSX has been pretty routine. I would sort of rank them a 4 or 4+ out of 5 based upon my limited experience with the NSX. Like Ian, I noted that when they offer up the Mobil 1 option, it is really pricey which always causes me to go conventional oil when they do the oil change. However, last fall when we did the oil on my NSX, Pilot and my son's RSX, we got the filters from Honda. Honda's price for the filters with a new crush washer included was less than the cost of the comparable filters from Canadian Tire. I don't know whether that is a change in pricing from Honda or a local parts manager initiative.
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Canadian Tire filters for an NSX?
I assume JD is more interested in the pros/cons of dealing on a new NSX with Dilawri as opposed to service cost .. but since I already went a bit off topic with the Mobil 1 comment I should probably clarify a bit. Part of the reason for the high cost is that they charge something like $60+ for the oil when you can pick up 5 litres on sale at CT for low $30s. On top of that is the fact that when you ask for Mobil 1, they 'unbundle' the price of an oil change and charge the sum of the piece parts .. instead of just adding the oil cost difference onto the oil change bundled price. I had been buying from CT; leaving it in the trunk; and letting them know I was providing my own oil. Then one day they said "we stock Mobil 1 .. you can just ask for it" .. so I did .. and that's when my bill was like $135. So, I've gone back to just providing my own oil .. even though I pay the unbundled price for the filter and change. I wasn't aware I could get NSX filters from the Honda dealer.
On a separate note, I had a need to replace my EMS and IIRC, they quoted me something like $1700 and a long time to get it. I went online and bought new from a US Acura dealer for about $850 and had it within 10 days. I presume Acura Canada sets the Cdn/US price spread so maybe you can't blame Dilawri for that. Recently, I blew my clutch and they were quite accommodating in allowing me to order and have them install an SOS 350 clutch and I believe I got a break on the labour hours. Don't know if that's common across dealerships. I know that they had an NSX owner in Saskatoon who used to get his work done in Regina because of bad experiences in Saskatoon.
Canadian Tire filters for an NSX?
No. Canadian Tire sells a lot of filters under different brand names. What I remember specifically is that my son had previously purchased some 'higher end' Fram filter for his RSX and that the Honda filter that I picked up for him was significantly lower in price than the Fram filter. That got me curious and I checked the package cost of the three filters for our Honda vehicles from Honda versus the available Canadian Tire filters and the Honda all in cost was less and included the crush washers.
That said, I am less sold on the relative merits of different oil filters. Change the oil and filter regularly and I think most of them will be just fine. If you go to the track and think that you are suffering a pressure loss under WOT conditions , then maybe you need to explore higher flow options.
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Dilawri recently relocated the Acura dealership from being adjacent to their BMW building to being adjacent to their Honda building. The Acura parts department has now been folded into the Honda parts department. I also suspect that the physical service facilities are now common as last time I was in there I didn't notice separate service bays for Acura. I don't know whether the service techs moved with the change in facilities. That would be something to check.
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I suspect that if you look at the US Honda / Acura list price for parts, the part price discrepancy between US and Canada might not be so drastic. However, in the US, I think their federal anti competition laws are much more 'activist' with the result that large dealerships are free to discount their prices. In Canada, either Honda is able to enforce mandatory parts pricing because of less rigorous anti completion laws or the dealerships are not motivated to enter the on-line parts market and get into a head to head price bashing exercise for parts sales. I don't know the cause for lack of parts discounting in Canada.
However, since Ian did raise the US versus Canada parts issue, it did remind me of a negative experience I had which may be more attributable to Honda Canada than the dealership. When I purchased my NSX, the trunk struts were pretty much at the end of their useful life. I went into the dealership to order new struts. To no surprise, I was advised that they were not in stock and that they were going to have to come from Japan, that it was going to take a couple of months and the price was very 'special'. I was prepared for a higher price for OEM. I was not prepared for the extended delivery and a price adder. That event precipitated my first cross border NSX parts purchase which resulted in two struts showing up on my doorstep in about two weeks for less than the cost of one strut from the dealership. If I were purchasing a new NSX, one of the things I would be quizzing the dealership and Honda / Acura Canada about is how they are going to support the car. Given the low volume of sales in Canada, I don't expect that Honda / Acura is going to be maintaining a large stock of non consumables for the NSX. If you break something or something does break, is the part going to have to be shipped from Japan? It might be nice if Honda / Acura Canada had some kind of sharing or purchase arrangement with Honda US who is probably going to have a larger sales volume which would support maintaining a larger inventory of spare parts.
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Yes, I've been in the new facility when the clutch was done in December. Although the bays are under the same roof, my car was in the same bay on separate occasions so I presume there are some designated Acura bays. Both the service writer and the NSX tech are the same ones from the other location.
If they fail again, I've had good luck sending them to Strutwise in BC for refurbishment. Low cost (Cdn) & quick turnaround. There's a thread on Prime if you haven't seen it.
Since the new one is built in the US, this probably will be less of a problem in the future.
I have done couple of nsx CCU repairs for them, it's nice to see a dealership looking for cheaper alternatives to new parts for their customers. There are dealers in the states that will just sell a whole new ccu for $2400 when it's just the $800 control board. I would imagine canada would be more like $3400 for a whole ccu.
- Joined
- 24 May 2002
- Messages
- 1,431
I bought an M6 and my NSX is not quite out the door yet but I need help with the CC unit. Is there a fuse to change? I think it went pop due to a bad battery. The Dalawri Group tech did recommend Briank.
