Honda of America — 800-999-1009 — had no record of the dealer calling about the diagnosis of the 2002 CRV air conditioner failure, which has been termed “Black Death.” Honda of America now says they want only the customer contacting them. Very strange. Bernardi Honda of Natick, Massachusetts is a Honda dealer, and you’d think they would have a better communication path than me calling the 800 number. Obviously, this is all done to discourage consumers from trying to get satisfaction. Anyway, the case supposedly has been forwarded to a regional manager, who will contact me in the next day or two, to discuss the situation.
I sure hope Honda comes up with a reasonable response, because A/C Black Death is a common complaint with second generation CRV’s. As the good guys say in Star Wars when dealing with the Empire, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” But I should point out that there are FOUR of these CRV’s on our street alone, and I would hope Honda of America is savvy enough to have a database, and check it, before they leave me high and dry.
Same here-my wife and I have owned 3 hondas including this one-and based on how your family as well as my family have been treated in both cases-I just don’t feel that we want to stay loyal.
Clearly the motion sensor for your air bag overreacted to the jostling caused by the gravel road. Honda is blowing smoke out its tail pipe.
Our CRV is the third Honda we’ve owned, and until the air conditioner hassle my wife and I considered ourselves to be “Honda loyal”. But I no longer feel that way.
Sounds like they helped you as much as they helped me. I own a 2005 Element and while my family was driving down a gravel driveway to a house-the drivers side curtain airbag deployed. Yep- just went BOOM!! I took my car to the dealership because I purchased the extended warranty-and the dealership said “no problem, we’ll get this fixed and you can be on your way”-they even gave me a loaner car. Well, everything was rolling along smoothly until, you guessed it. The factory got involved, good ol’ Honda of America. They said that the airbags aren’t covered under the warranty and that they don’t just deploy, I must have hit something. Well, when two separate dealerships have thier ASE certified honda techs look at it and tell me that nothing is wrong with the car-not a dent, ding, or scuff, I’m pretty sure I didn’t hit anything-they even said the under side of my car looked great. Long story short the repair bill is $1200 and after what seems like hundreds of phone calls later I’m at the point were “a manager is checking on my case, and will contact me in the future.” Thanks Honda of America, you really know how to grab your customers by the ankels and shake all their hard earned money right out of their pockets and into yours. Sounds like a great business strategy.
Making each individual car owner call Honda of America, instead of the local dealerships calling on behalf of their multiple customer complaints, is obviously EXTREMELY inefficiient. It sounds bad, as you say Doug, like Honda of America is dragging their feet on handling this problem.
Maybe they’re hoping that while their delaying tactics are going on, a certain percentage of people might just trade in their problem cars at their dealerships this summer for a new, more fuel efficient auto! After all, it can be pretty uncomfortable driving around for the next month or two with NO air conditioning! People don’t want to get all sweaty before they even arrive at the office for work!
Or perhaps Honda of America hopes that people will get tired of waiting “on hold” on the phone for a customer service representative. Or they might collect a ton of voice mail complaints, and then just chip away at returning all those calls, over the coming months.
Of course, there’s always the chance that the dealership itself is ducking handling the problem, by telling you that you have to call Honda of America privately, instead of them doing it on your behalf.
Me cynical? Naaaaahhhh…. Good luck, and let us know how all this unfolds!!