Hey guys. I just had to share this story with you all. In no way am I disrespecting any Honda repairman or service dept's. here, but I had one hell of an experience today and I need to know if this is how it works everywhere else.

Ok...let's go to the beginning. I saw a thread about a guy who's seatbelts were not retracting properly (just like mine). I believe that Deserthonda responded that Honda offers a lifetime warranty on all the seatbelts and to just go to the dealer to get it inspected and they will take care of replacing the belts. Well, I call up my local Honda dealer and ask them about this and they tell me that YES it is true. I ask when I can bring my car in and they tell me I have to make an APPOINTMENT. Fine by me, so I made an appointment for 10am today (Feb. 8th) to have my belts inspected. Everything seems cool so far. Soooooooo....today arrives and I pull in to the Honda dealer at 9:50 am anticipating I will only be there no more than 1/2 an hour...I mean, how long can it take someone to determine if my seatbelts are shot or not...right? Well, the service guy comes out with his clipboard in hand and I tell him I have an APPOINTMENT to have my sealtbelts inspected to determine if they have malfunctioned or not. I also explained that I had just BOUGHT the car a month ago. He looked at the belts and quickly agreed they were shot. He asks me to go inside to write up the paperwork and to order the new belts. While we are in there he takes off to talk to another service rep. He then comes back and informs me that a service tech. will have to look at the belts and confirm if they are covered or not (whether it is mechanical, or whether they don't work due to owner damage). I say, cool...let's do it. He then tells me I will need to come back later for they are backed up and won't be able to look at my belts for 3-4 hours. (mind you, I took off from work thinking this would take a minamal amount of time) WELL...now I am fumed...and I ask "Why do I have to wait??? Isn't that's why I made the 10am appointment? To me, that means I get served at 10am as long as I show up on time...isn't that how it is suppose to work? (reminds me of a Seinfeld episode in which he reserved a car that wasn't there when he went to pick it up, therefore nulifying the whole purpose of the reservation!) Anyhow, they proceed to tell exactly this..."Well sir, we open at 8:00am and we have plenty of customers ahead of you, and we just can't roll a car off the rack to service yours." Well...why the hell not??? Didn't I make an APPOINTMENT?????? I then ask them the PURPOSE of the appointment and they tell me "oh...that was just a drop off time appointment." WHAT....Had I known that, I would have dropped it off days ago at 8 in the morning like the other "drive-ups" do. Makes no damn sence at all. I was specificly told on the phone, the day I called, that I had to have an appointment cause they were booked thru Wed. (feb. 8th).

Ok...so, now I have to leave my car there and be shuttled back to work. They tell me it shoudn't be any more than 3 hours. Well, three hours comes and goes and no call, so I call them. They then tell me my car is done...that they CLEANED the belts and they now work fine and they proceed to LECTURE me on maintenance on the belts. Excuse me...didn't I tell them I just bought the car. Anyhow, they made me feel like a jackass or stupid for letting my seatbelts get dirty!!!! My god...I have never heard of such a thing.

So...I go to pick up my car. My boss drops me off. When I go in they tell me "Well, it took 1/2 hour to clean your belts and they did a really killer job so we are going to have to charge you 45.00." OH MY GOD....I just cannot believe this. I looked him straight in the eye and asked him "Who authorized you to do that?" He said he called my work and left a message on the machine. Well....big deal...he didn't talk to me and I never gave an OK to do any work. I told him all I did was bring my car in for a seatbelt inspection to see if the warranty would cover it...that's it, end of story. I told him I was not paying a dime. He called the manager over and the manager had enough sense to tell him that I was right...no charge...I never authorized it.

It just blows me away that Honda goes to the extent to offer a SAFETY featured warranty on seatbelts, and then put the customer through such a hassle. You would think they would be glad to replace a safety feature. Oh well.

And to boot, when I picked up my car and got back to work...the belts DID NOT retract like they claimed...same ole dangling and pushing it back in the car.

Please tell me it's not like this everywhere. Sorry, but I had to rant after that.

peace out,
daddy

 

sadly, i have had a similar experience at dealerships - one in orange county, and one in fontucky (fontana)... these stupid 'appointments' are entirely useless, i've never gotten a call back at the promised time, rarely had the work done by the promised deadline, and they never seem to speak the same laguage - i describe the problem, leave the car there, and when they 'finish' it, they describe an entirely different problem than i did! this is a sad state of affairs regarding the automotive industry... i don't blame the mechanics, its always been the service consultant that can't seem to put the pieces of the puzzle together - i mean, don't promise something that you don't deliver! in my business, a broken promise can result in a lawsuit or a lost client... why is it so hard to just fix a problem where the service should be specialized, and why do they always try to say they 'fixed' or 'improved' the problem when nothing has changed in the week since my car has been in the shop???? the world may never know...

 

SRS light on, local shop diagnosed as LF belt connector.
Honda America Rep says (on the phone) warrenty only covers "mechanical" not electrical defects.
I say you are splitting hairs and the RSR light might mean no air bag deployment. She agreed.She said they accept case by case reviews.
Last %$#&@ Honda I will every buy.
I tell her my Toyota dealer never charges for diagnostics to repair a warrenty item. Honda is going to lose maket share if I have anything to say about it.
Shabby way to treat an owner.
Reminds of the FORD pinto gas tank issue where saving pennies was more important than saving lives.
Bottom line comes first.

 

Not sure what year you have here. As all are not lifetime or "life of the car", some have a set time.

I've read from more than one member that their dealer replaced the switch without any issue. So did you go to the dealer and see what they said.

Also, more than one member on here has cleared the issue by cleaning the switch.

Good luck.