[gnuhcw]

OK, am I an AR or the dialership?

My wife's Odyssey was just given a 30K maintenance at this Sunnyvale (N. CA) Honda dealership. Go figure who it is (only one!). I should've popped the hood up to check right in the face of the service manager when we picked up the van but I only found it after we went home. The dipstick showed one inch above the max mark. It took me three time to drain the extra almost 1 quart engine oil. I thought that I was patriotic to generate some business by paying someone $300+ for this maintenance. What an idiot! No more!

"Well, well, why didn't you go back to question them?" as you may ask. As I said, I am an AR when it comes to the car maintenance. And I also know that the dealer personnels have one damned thing in common, i.e., deny, deny, and deny. The reason that I was and still am mad at this is that if the mechanics makes (present tense to reflect the bad habit) a mistake in such a simple thing like oil change, what else (not obvious) can't be screwed up. This is not the only problem because we found a minor dent on the third row passenger side. How am I sure? I washed and waxed the van a day before the maintenance appointment. Once I got over the steam on my head, I will post the maintenance listing to discuss the worthiness of the 30K maintenance. No offensive is intended

If anyone from dealership or dealer mechanic shops is reading on this thread, please voice your opinions

 

[Joe Bowen]

It seems to be fairly common for dealers to overfill the oil. Not sure why because a quart hear and a quart there...

That's one reason to do it yourself.

 

[gnuhcw]

To rephrase "a quart here and a quart there..." to "a bolt here and a nut there... (missing, overtightening, losening," "misroute electricity wiring..." Or perhaps worst, "not refill engine oil once in a while..." or "forget to put the ground node on the battery..." On and on...

Hey the last incident happened to me once (not in this dealer). A few years ago, we had our junky Tauras serviced and my wife and I drove home (still drivable--I laughed at that time). In our car garrage, we heard sizzling under the hood after shutting off the engine. I opened up the hood and saw one (I forgot if it is +ve or -ve) of the cables dangling to the battery node which made the sparkling noise.

Paying that much for maintenance, they (the shops) should have QA monkeys to check things out. To me, mechanism stuff is "monkey see-monkey do" stuff--no brainer.