I Suck At Honda

Interestingly enough, the highlight of today involves cars. Not only did Karen and I pay off our newer car (the Subaru Forrester) today, but we also received a check from the Honda dealership in regards to our Honda Civic.

Now I suck at Honda. Some time ago, our 2010 Honda Civic was having trouble starting. The car would crank and crank, but just wouldn't catch, which was bizarre for a fairly new car. After bringing the car into the Honda dealership in Weymouth, I had their technicians take a look.

The technicians held the car over night. They had to jump the car to get it started the next morning. And after jumping the car, they supposedly ran some battery tests to check for a parasitic leak. They also supposedly checked the starter and alternator. In the end, the concluded that there was nothing wrong with the car and sent me on my way.

Naturally, I was not all that pleased with the service especially since they sent me on my way without actually resolving the issue. And of course, I was not at all pleased when the car failed to start again a few days later.

As luck would have it, the car failed to start last Sunday, which is when the Honda dealership is closed. With the dealership closed, we brought the car to Firestone located in Hingham. I have always had good luck with Firestone. I used to bring my Saturn there for any work that had to be done.

It did not take long for Firestone to discover the cause of the issue: the battery. In fact, they mentioned it was very obvious that the cause was the battery. So Firestone replaced the battery in the car.

From there, we had to contact Honda about getting a reimbursement. After all, the battery was still under warranty. And in order to get the reimbursement, we had to bring back the battery to the dealership so that they could run a test with a GR-8 tester to make sure it was the battery.

I know, it seems a little peculiar that Honda had to run a test on the battery again, when they probably should have run the test the first time around when they had the car. But whatever. This time around, Honda concluded that indeed it was the battery and issued a reimbursement check to us. It definitely was a lot of work for something that, to me, should have been caught the first time around.