I am fuming right now. Being a 100F day in Atlanta didn't help. My wife was with my 2 young kids at Target today. I was at work. She accidentally locked her keys in the car. So she called Honda Care Roadside Assistance to have someone come out to unlock the van.
This contracting company (American Road Services) sent this idiot to do the unlocking. He had no idea what he was doing and instead of slim jimming the lock, he decided to pry open the window frame and jab a metal bar into the car and tries to hit the lock switch. In the process he totally scratched up both driver's and passenger's side control switch. He scratched the outside of my sliding door. He bent my passenger side window frame so it's sticking 1/2" out now. To make this even funnier, he gives a receipt to my wife which shows they will bill $140.00 for this service.
After all this, he tells my wife he can't open it. So my wife calls me up at work and I had to take off early to drive home 40 mins away and pick up the spare keys and then find her at Target.
I got home and called Honda Care and the guy told me I have to file a complaint with their subcontracting Roadside services (Cross Country). So I called them and filed a complaint. The lady tells me someone will call me in couple of days.
I am pissed because I have used unlocking services and the pros are always very careful not to scratch the car and know how to slim jim. My wife tells me he went straight to jamming that piece of metal to the switches. That guy had no business doing what he was doing and now I am stuck with dealing with this claim which means I will have to take more time off work to get it fixed..... I also love the fact that Honda Care department can probably wash their hands clean on this one since they subcontract their roadside services to Cross Country.
Here are some pictures below. All this was done in about 15 minutes by one guy.
You can see the passenger door frame is not flush anymore
The rubber gasket around the driver's window is pushed into the frame. Don't know what he did here.
I thought about it. Instead of waiting for them to call me, tomorrow I will go to my local collision shop to get an estimate. This shop is very good and professional and they are certified by the local dealerships to repair Honda, Toyota, and BMW.
When Cross Country calls me in a couple of day, I will just tell them to pay this repair, no buts or ifs.
File the complaint with Honda of course, may be Honda can help. But dont blame Honda for a single worker who workds for a thrid party. As if they have any control over which yahoo shows up???
If Honda cant help then start dealing direct with the thrid party and keep pushing.
But really, to replace that switch cover isnt a big deal and isnt costly. I know it sucks...but seriously...relax a bit. It could be much worse.
Be happy your wife or whoever go in the van and could drive away vs being stranded for hours.
File the complaint with Honda of course, may be Honda can help. But dont blame Honda for a single worker who workds for a thrid party. As if they have any control over which yahoo shows up???
If Honda cant help then start dealing direct with the thrid party and keep pushing.
But really, to replace that switch cover isnt a big deal and isnt costly. I know it sucks...but seriously...relax a bit. It could be much worse.
Be happy your wife or whoever go in the van and could drive away vs being stranded for hours.
That's an interesting statement. I say this because when I bought the Honda Care warranty, I made payment to Honda. When I call Honda Roadside Assistance, the person on the line answers 'Honda Roadside Assistance'. So which company was it that subcontracted the work to Cross Country to provide roadside assitance?.....hmmm........I think that company is called 'HONDA'. I certainly didn't think I bought the extended warranty from Cross Country. If Honda wants to make a profit by selling this warranty product, then they better back it up.
I understand in todays corporation, everything gets subcontracted from one entity to another. I myself work as a consulting engineer for a major electronics company. We also subcontract a lot of warranty repairs to an 'authorized' third party company. At the end of the day, if this company causes more problems, then the ownership is on us.
Perhaps I can put things in perspective. I am sure you heard about the recent BP oil disaster. BP contracted a company called Transocean which owned a drilling rig called Deep Horizon to do it's drilling. I think you know what has happened with this one. Need I say more.
This is 100% Honda's fault, your claim is with Honda, and they will go after the third party company. Or you can call Cross Country and tell them what happened, they might work with you since I doubt they want to lose their business with Honda. Like I said its Honda fault because they contracted this company to do the work, and they need to stand by their work. I use to work for Lowe's at the installation office, if you want to have it install by Lowe's I would set it up. Well we hired local third party companies to do the installation at peoples homes, they weren't Lowe's employees at all. And very time they f**** up a job, Lowe's will get the complaint and had to fix the problem. Same situation here, so I would be calling Honda to tell them where the car would be taken to.
I just got back from the collision shop and got the estimate. The job will cost $1200 (not including rental car). Even the estimator was shaking his head on this one. Now I wait for Honda/Cross Country to call me and see what they say.
Ummmm....I wouldn't wait for them to call, I would be calling them.
Or better yet, make an attempt to find out where the local shop this yahoo came from is located and go there.
But thats just me and your post really made me angry that someone would do that.
Hope you can get this resolved with a mininum of hassle!
File the complaint with Honda of course, may be Honda can help. But dont blame Honda for a single worker who workds for a thrid party. As if they have any control over which yahoo shows up???
If Honda cant help then start dealing direct with the thrid party and keep pushing.
But really, to replace that switch cover isnt a big deal and isnt costly. I know it sucks...but seriously...relax a bit. It could be much worse.
Be happy your wife or whoever go in the van and could drive away vs being stranded for hours.
Dude - Totally disagree. They took this from an inconvenient problem, that could have been (and was) fixed without damage, and then inflicted a bunch of needless damage. Stoooopid
And I disagree re: Honda. HONDA is the one that chose to subcontract with this ya-hoo guy....HONDA is the one offering roadside assistance. If you had a problem with one of the mechanical parts of the car, would HONDA deal with it or would you be saying "hey this part is actually made by a subcontractor Dai-Ityso Jan-Mai Motors in Toyko so you should pursue them"
I'd be all over Honda to fix this 100% completely, as the OP said, no "ifs or buts"
I think most newer cars...This AAA guy that came to unlock my aunts 2000 Camry used a thin rod on side top of the door frame to slip some sort of deflated air bag, remove the rod inflated the air bag created a tiny opening to slip what look like a bend out of shape coat hanger rod to unlock the car...he was in and out in less then 5 mins, I think he took more time putting his gear away than the actual process. He said that the airbag is to create the opening so he won't damage the paint around the door, I was very impress with his work.
Here in bay area Honda has sub-sub-contracted to a different set of yahoos. Once I called them for a flat (lug nuts were super tight for me) and two amigos showed up in a beat up truck carrying sod (yes sod!). One of them quickly raised the van and started removing the nuts without putting a wedge under other tires. Van was standing on a steep driveway. These guys were looking shabby and could barely speak English. I will think twice before calling honda care for roadside assistance. Better to pay $50 and get AAA.
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