Poway Honda

Around February 2011 we purchased a 2008 Honda CRV from Poway Honda as a Certified Used Vehicle. At the time we were thinking of purchasing the vehicle, we noticed scratches on top of the rear hatch door and the antennae not sitting flush on the roof of the car. The used car salesman told us that the car had a bumper to bumper warranty, that those sorts of things were only cosmetic, and to not worry about it. The CRV is driven very little and sits in the garage all of the time so, we never really paid attention. But two weeks ago, we were washing the car and noticed that a stream of water was coming down from the plastic cover on the rear interior ceiling inside of the car. We scheduled an appointment with Poway Honda to get this repaired, thinking this vehicle has a bumper to bumper warranty and all should be good. How wrong we were.

On Friday September 7th, 2011 I took my low-mileage 2008 Honda CRV in to Poway Honda for service. The service personnel inspected it and came back with the diagnosis that the antennae had been damaged and that it was not covered under warranty. I was livid. I was sent to speak to the used car sales manager, the very guy who signed off on my purchase of the vehicle 8 months before. He looked over the vehicle and kept running his hand over the scratches on the rear roof of the car. He straight out said that we damaged the car and that we were completely responsible for the repair. I told him that the vehicle was sold with those scratches and that the antennae was in that very condition. I told him that the salesperson told it it was merely cosmetic and that we shouldn't worry about it because there was a bumper to bumper warranty on the vehicle. The sales manager, in so many words, said I was lying because they would never sell a vehicle in that condition. I could not believe my ears. This man was standing there telling me that the very defective vehicle they sold me, was in that condition because I caused it. The salesperson and the sales manager passed it off as "cosmetic" when they knew that the vehicle, as sold, did not really meet Honda Certified standards.

This business is completely unethical, unprofessional, and should be investigated for pretending to sell "certified" vehicles when in fact they are not. Stay away from Poway Honda. They are unscrupulous individuals who will cheat you every chance they get. I will never take my business to Poway Honda and neither should anyone who cares to be treated with respect and honesty.

On May 8, 2008 Toyota Poway completely mis-diagnosed our 2005 Toyota Prius electrical problem. (The VSC light had come on). John Capponi, with Toyota Poway, called Lynette (customer wife) and asked her exactly what happened, as he couldnt figure out the problem. After extensively detailing the events, including the fact our grandchild had been playing in the front of the car as Lynette and our daughter were putting things in the car.

Almost two hours later, John called Lynette to say they found some coins in the radio, and the coins had shorted things out. This caused the radio, a/c, smart key, and display not to work. The heater was stuck in the on position. Lynette had John call Patrick (customer husband).

John told Patrick the radio was shorted and needed to be replaced. We couldnt wait three days for the radio to be ordered and arrive as we needed to drive back to Lake Havasu City, AZ. John said hed replace some fuses and disconnect the radio. Patrick asked John if the radio would be the only thing that would not work if we drove it to Havasu. He said yes and we would have no radio on the trip to AZ. Patrick asked if he was leaving the radio out. He said no, it wouldnt look good and wanted to fill the hole. Patrick said to go ahead and wed have our Toyota dealer order the radio when we got back.

We picked up the car after about 3 hours and paid $95. The invoice said:

upon inspection found dome lamp and door lock (remote key) systems shorted out able to trace malfunction to radio unit shorted out replaced blown fuses, repaired electrical but radio in need of replacement customer from Arizona and here on a visit so not enough time to order a replacement radio unit they will be taking car to their regular servicing dealer when they return home (radio model #51807 serial #SH71094).?

When we drove back to the motel to pack up, we noticed the following not working (in addition to the radio which we had expected): the air conditioning, the display, and the heater was on. Lynette called John and told him about these problems. He said, I forgot about the air conditioning? (contradictory to what John told Patrick).

We were ok to make the 6 hour trip back to AZ with the radio not working, but not with the a/c inoperable. We proceeded on our trip to AZ as we had not time to see a different Toyota dealer in the area to see if they could fix the a/c. The entire trip had to be made with the windows down in hot weather and heat blowing on us the entire time. The baby cried almost the entire time because of the noise created with the windows down and the discomfort of the outside heat exacerbated by the heater on which could not be turned off. In short, it was the trip from hell caused solely by the incompetence of Toyota Poway employees John Capponi and mechanic (we believe his name to be) Tran?.

Lynette called Toyota Kingman, AZ the next day (May 9, 2008) to order the radio and told the lady what had happened. Their mechanic was walking by and overheard the conversation. He got on the phone and asked Lynette if she could bring the car in right away. He said he did not want to order a radio for the car if it was unnecessary, and it sounded to him like Toyota Poway mis-diagnosed the problem.

Lynette took it in that day. The mechanic found and fixed the problem in one hour (no questions to Lynette as to what had happened). It cost $103. The mechanic handed Lynette a penny and said this was your problem. It was found in the radio?. He removed it, replaced some fuses (probably the same ones John replaced that probably shorted out again because he didnt remove the penny) and the car was good to go. The Kingman mechanic said the radio was perfectly fine and didnt need to be replaced. Lynette asked why couldnt Poway have fixed it?? The mechanic said theres no reason?.

Lynette called John at Poway Toyota when she got home. She asked John how many coins he had removed from the radio. He said he never removed any coins because they never removed the radio (contradictory to what John told Patrick). Lynette asked him why he hadnt. John said their mechanics dont know how to open up the radio they just remove them and replace them. Lynette then asked John if they were a real Toyota dealership. John said they were. Lynette asked John why Kingman could fix the radio and Poway couldnt, and John said maybe Kingmans mechanics have more experience. Lynette told John she was very dissatisfied with that answer.

The Poway Toyota Customer Relations in Georgia called some days later. Lynette couldnt talk to them on the first call because she was too sick from the drive back from Poway. The second call they asked how the service was on a scale of 0 to 10, 10 being the best. Lynette said a 0. She gave them detailed information about the utter incompetence of Toyota Poway.

It has been some 5 months since this unfortunate occurrence and the general manager of Toyota Poway, Rick Gallagher, has done nothing in an attempt to contact us regarding the deplorable incident of his employees. This is the second submittal to BAR as the first one dated 6/23/08 was never received by BAR.

In short, we were in an unfamiliar city, did not know any mechanics, and relied on the Toyota dealership name. We expected excellence and got incompentence.

We paid $95 for nothing.

The drive home was hell. Windows had to be down when it was above 100 degrees outside and the heater had to be on because of Toyota Poways inability to fix a simple problem. The baby cried almost the entire way home. Everyone got sick for about a week as a result of the utter incompetence of Toyota Poway.

Toyota Poway should pay us the $103 it cost us to have a competent Toyota dealer fix the problem Toyota Poway was incapable of doing. Toyota Poway should also pay us for pain and suffering we experienced as a direct result of their incompetence. It is clear to us that both John and Tran didnt know what they were doing. An investigation of both John and Tran should be conducted to determine if 1) they have met the requirements of both classroom and experience required by the State to work on the jobs they were on, and 2) if John and Tran are found to have met the State requirements, they should both be required to take remedial training to learn, or re-learn, some of the basics they should know. In addition, an investigation of Toyota Poway should be conducted to evaluate their procedures and processes in allowing incompetent staff to work on Toyota products.

A copy of this complaint will be forwarded to Toyota Headquarters.

I originally purchased an 07 Honda Hybrid and after driving it for one day I experienced back pain! The seats in this car are extremely hard and aggravated a back problem I have. I told the salesman that I had back surgery before I bought the car! I came back the next day and spoke to the salesman about this issue. He refered me to the service dept. I took the car to the service dept and they said that there was nothing they could do.

I then spoke to the GM, Peter Robertshaw and he told me that I could trade it in for an Accord! He told me that he was very tired and didnt have the time to help me. He sent me to their Sales Manager, Z Hasual. Mr. Hasual was extremely arrogant and made this experience very unpleasant. The so-called deal he made with me caused me to loose over 4,000 dollars on a car they sold me the day before. He said that they were in a business to make money and that I could take it or leave it, his exact words!

My experience with this dealership was extremely negative and I was treated very poorly by their staff. Once they sell you a car it is your problem and they dont want to help you!

I lost over 4,000 dollars on a car I owned for one day and now own an accord that has equally hard seats that are aggravating my back.

I went to Poway Honda because they offered me a great deal on a 2003 Honda Accord (I'm a first-time buyer who wanted to pay for the car entirely upfront - no financing).

The process was smooth and the sales people were quite respectful, but I was almost skinned alive when I was sent to do the final paperwork with the finance manager Aaron S.

Aaron was rude and arrogant from the start, shrugging off my questions and concerns and pressuring me to sign all the paperwork without giving me the chance to read them all thoroughly. The best he would do was give me a brief description of each form, making them all seem as if they were trivial pieces of paper (which they definitely were not).

Then came the attempted scams. I didn't have car insurance right at that moment (I planned on surfing the Net at the dealership for a policy), and Aaron offered to sell me a 30-day temporary policy for $249. I knew this was a bad deal, so I asked whether he had a computer I could use with Internet access. He flatly stated that none of the computers had Internet access.

I knew this wasn't true, so I stepped out of his office, asked a sales manager for an Internet-capable computer, and had a brand new policy at a great rate within fifteen minutes. When I pointed out to Aaron that the computers at the dealership did indeed have Internet access, he simply ducked my point that he had lied and moved right on rather than apologize (I was implicitly offering him this opportunity and also showing him that he couldn't mess with me).

Frustrated at not being able to sell me on this scam or any of the other ones (extended warranties, etc.), Aaron went for the coup de grace and tried to get me to sign a final purchase contract that would have locked me into a financing at a very high interest rate (remember, I wasn't interested in financing the purchase and incidentally have great credit). I had read about scams involving Asian immigrants with poor English skills who unknowingly locked themselves into auto financings rather than the upfront purchases they were looking for (I'm Asian, by the way), so I refused to sign the contract. When I expressed my concerns regarding this, he belittled them and refused in any way to change the contract so as to not mention anything regarding a financing. He added that this is what the machine printed out and that he couldn't change it and that my concerns and fears were unfounded.

At this point I refused to deal with him any further and walked back to a sales manager to ask to speak to a different manager, otherwise I'd be leaving. The sales manager agreed to my request, and lo and behold I was given a contract written up the way I wanted (yes Aaron, you CAN change what the machine prints out), with no ambiguities regarding the purchase terms. The new finance manager also addressed all of my concerns in a respectful manner, so in the end I did end up purchasing the car.