HELP! Dealership wants their car back or I fork out more money. WTF Honda.

Goseki said:

Also, technically the contract states they have 45 days to undo the deal, so I suppose I won't be out of the window until 10/21. So I guess that will be when I post a final update.

Again, worse car buying experience ever...

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zroger73 said:

If they REALLY needed that $500 to finalize the transaction and it wasn't paid, that car would already have been towed back to the dealer and the owner would have been arrested for grand theft auto hours after leaving the dealership. Nothing else will ever come of this if the buyer take no action.

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Goseki said:

In summary, everything ended up happening very rapidly so I can't tell if one was related to another. Basically this is how it went down this afternoon:

1) This afternoon, I called the dealer telling them to basically either eat the $500 or take my car back and undo the deal. They said they would look into it and pursue lawful action if necessary (since I mentioned I had already sent the sales receipt/contract to my lawyer to review)

2) I called Honda corporate, got the issue escalated to a regional liason.

3) Manager on today calls me back and tells me to bring the car in today if I wasn't going to pay the $500 since the "exemption" hadn't gone through.

4) I call the manager back saying I'm about to start work for the evening ( I'm on night shift, and that I would bring the car in first thing in the morning, he pretended to forget who I was, (just called like 10 mins earlier)

5) I submit my story to the local news website portal.

6) I called Honda corporate back and told them dealer wants to undo the deal to see if they could escalate it, they said it hasn't been reviewed yet and it would prob take 24 hours, but they would add a new note.

7) (15 mins later)Honda liason calls me, I tell her the story, she says it sounds like a financing issue, nothing she could do, but she would call the dealership general manager and have him call me to see if we can work something out.

8) (5 mins later) I get a text telling me everything has been taken care of, I no longer owe anything except the financed amount.

9) I call the manager back, he apologizes for the confusion, very respectful and nice sounding now. States that everything is taken care of, thank you for the business, the usual.

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Goseki said:

Alright, final update.

The store manager did eventually call about 2 weeks later to figure out what was going on since I had escalated this to the regional liason, although they told me they couldn't do anything and this was between me and the dealership. See timeline above. When he did call, the manager basically told me that they gave me a good deal and sorry that I'm not happy. Wording was that they did me a favor by covering the $500. No apologies. No our bad, we should have checked and made sure you qualified first, no sorry for waking you up every day while you were working midnight shifts.

In the end, something very minor was handled in a way that left a terrible taste in my mouth. I agreed to pay down the financed amount over 3 months, so I divided the payments in 3 and will be making 3 payments like we agreed on so they don't get a penalty. I did think about just paying it off at once, but decided to stick with my word and be the bigger man.

I don't know about other dealerships, but this will likely be my last Honda. This was at Honda of the Avenues in Jacksonville, Florida. I've always been a loyal buyer, and even though it's more expensive, I almost always bring my car in to a dealership for maintenance and oil changes. Hell, before all this my family was almost all Honda. Afterwards we've all agreed to never buy another Honda again. Over $500, scare tactics, and poor communication, they've burned a bridge. Such is life. I've moved on, and just wanted to give this forum closure since you guys did a great job and the responses and support really did help. So finally, a grateful Thank-you.

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Goseki said:

This was at Honda of the Avenues in Jacksonville, Florida.

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joecin said:

Say you bought the car 5 days ago and realized there was a $500 college rebate you missed.
Do you think they would give it to you?

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zroger73 said:

Forgive me if you've already mentioned this earlier in the thread, but what are you "paying down" in three payments? Not the $500 I hope!

Why blame Honda? NONE of this was their fault - it's COMPLETELY the dealer. There are over 1,000 more Honda dealers besides the one you dealt with. Swearing off Honda because of a dealer experience may be shooting yourself in the other foot.

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LegendaryElite said:

I've been there once since my splash shield fell off during a road trip. The service adviser was very nice and helpful. They also install the splash guard for me without charging.
I almost wanted to bring my gf there to get her new ride.
But I guess after your post I probably won't be going back. What a shame, these sales are always trying to milk their customers.

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Goseki said:

It's more the lack of helpfulness. Even the regional liason or whatever was like... eh not much we can do. Honda financing and Honda dealership are 2 separate entities from Honda corporate. Which, to me, is just poor customer service. We might look at them down the line, but in general it's just been a huge pain which turned all of us off.

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