Last week 06-07-05: I called Steven’s Creek Acura where I got the car. Spoke to the Service Mgr Paul Somali, advised him on what’s going on and that I was advised by “Don Hilltop Auto Service” who performed my 1st service and 1st oil change and told me that my front tires looks like wearing out prematurely.
I received somewhat of a cold welcome, but never the less he was still helpful and took my claim. Paul told me that he will present my case to the Dealer General mgr and also to the Acura Representative and will call me back to let me know what the outcome may be.
(I made sure that he mentions to the General mgr and remind him that I purchased the car from them, it’s only 11mo old, the car ONLY has 4500miles, front tires are gone, but rear tires are still good.) So the following day I received a call back as promised from Paul and advised me that they will cover the alignment under warranty but “NOT” the tires. At this point I felt really upset that my tires wore out prematurely due to misalignment. And the Acura Dealer where I got my car from was not even trying to help me. Paul knew that I did not like result I heard from him and he also agreed that the decision by his upper management didn’t seemed fair. So he then gave me a number for “Honda/Acura Client Services” where u can complain if u are having some problems with your local Honda/Acura dealer. They would open a case# for you and document what happened. When I did call it was really worthless all they could tell me was to contact the tire manufacturer and see if they will cover and or replace with new tires.
So I called Bridgestone… and as you guessed they redirected me back to Acura. They told me that Acura should cover and replace my tires due to misalignment and the car is still under 1year and they told me that they receive may call’s from customers just like mine case and the dealer did in fact gave customers new tires. Bridgestone cant really do anything for me since the tires were theoretically not defective.
So at this point I was hesitant on calling Steven’s Creek Acura. I decided to call Serramonte Acura.
Called Serramonte Acura on 06-09-05 Spoke to the Service Mgr Chris. I advised him about what’s going on with my tires, and that I was advised by Don Hilltop Auto service that my NSX is possibly misaligned (I DID NOT mention that I was previously in contact with Steven’s Creek Acura). Chris arranged an appointment for me to take the car and see if the alignment specs are with in range.
To our surprise we found that my car was way of alignment. Front left and right were off by at least 3degrees each side on caster and my right rear was also off alignment in toe. So What does Serramonte Acura does??? They did the right thing… they got me and coved a new set of front tires and also aligned the car and was written off as factory error and under warranty.
I asked the service Mgr why would the factory be off specs by soo much.??? The best explanation he received from the Acura Rep was that they alignment rack in the factory maybe have been off and now they are suspecting there might be a few more 04 nsx’s that are off alignment that came out of the factory.
Now the bad news....
In the process of the Dealer remounting the new tires they managed to scratch not one of the front tires but both of them!!!
When the tech advised Chris (Srvc. Mgr) on what happened he immediately called me @ home and requested for me to come over and take a look @ the rims, they were even willing to ship the rims that day to a repair shop and heat up the rim for repair and repaint…. They were so scared and though I’d get really really pissed upset… but hey I’m sure it was just an accident, and I told them that I can live with that scratch (it truly was very minimal). There were surprised and saw the relief in their eyes..
My first drive…. The car seemed fine but when I hit some high speeds I can feel a vibration on the steering wheel…
Looks like I’d need to take the car to a Pro shop who would do a good wheel balance and another alignment, Oh well
Lesson Learned!!!
DEALERS SUCKS!!!! Unless you trying getting free stuffs. Other than that I wont go back to another dealer for my NSX. :biggrin:
I received somewhat of a cold welcome, but never the less he was still helpful and took my claim. Paul told me that he will present my case to the Dealer General mgr and also to the Acura Representative and will call me back to let me know what the outcome may be.
(I made sure that he mentions to the General mgr and remind him that I purchased the car from them, it’s only 11mo old, the car ONLY has 4500miles, front tires are gone, but rear tires are still good.) So the following day I received a call back as promised from Paul and advised me that they will cover the alignment under warranty but “NOT” the tires. At this point I felt really upset that my tires wore out prematurely due to misalignment. And the Acura Dealer where I got my car from was not even trying to help me. Paul knew that I did not like result I heard from him and he also agreed that the decision by his upper management didn’t seemed fair. So he then gave me a number for “Honda/Acura Client Services” where u can complain if u are having some problems with your local Honda/Acura dealer. They would open a case# for you and document what happened. When I did call it was really worthless all they could tell me was to contact the tire manufacturer and see if they will cover and or replace with new tires.
So I called Bridgestone… and as you guessed they redirected me back to Acura. They told me that Acura should cover and replace my tires due to misalignment and the car is still under 1year and they told me that they receive may call’s from customers just like mine case and the dealer did in fact gave customers new tires. Bridgestone cant really do anything for me since the tires were theoretically not defective.
So at this point I was hesitant on calling Steven’s Creek Acura. I decided to call Serramonte Acura.
Called Serramonte Acura on 06-09-05 Spoke to the Service Mgr Chris. I advised him about what’s going on with my tires, and that I was advised by Don Hilltop Auto service that my NSX is possibly misaligned (I DID NOT mention that I was previously in contact with Steven’s Creek Acura). Chris arranged an appointment for me to take the car and see if the alignment specs are with in range.
To our surprise we found that my car was way of alignment. Front left and right were off by at least 3degrees each side on caster and my right rear was also off alignment in toe. So What does Serramonte Acura does??? They did the right thing… they got me and coved a new set of front tires and also aligned the car and was written off as factory error and under warranty.
I asked the service Mgr why would the factory be off specs by soo much.??? The best explanation he received from the Acura Rep was that they alignment rack in the factory maybe have been off and now they are suspecting there might be a few more 04 nsx’s that are off alignment that came out of the factory.
Now the bad news....
In the process of the Dealer remounting the new tires they managed to scratch not one of the front tires but both of them!!!
When the tech advised Chris (Srvc. Mgr) on what happened he immediately called me @ home and requested for me to come over and take a look @ the rims, they were even willing to ship the rims that day to a repair shop and heat up the rim for repair and repaint…. They were so scared and though I’d get really really pissed upset… but hey I’m sure it was just an accident, and I told them that I can live with that scratch (it truly was very minimal). There were surprised and saw the relief in their eyes..
My first drive…. The car seemed fine but when I hit some high speeds I can feel a vibration on the steering wheel…
Looks like I’d need to take the car to a Pro shop who would do a good wheel balance and another alignment, Oh well
Lesson Learned!!!
DEALERS SUCKS!!!! Unless you trying getting free stuffs. Other than that I wont go back to another dealer for my NSX. :biggrin:
