Planet Honda Reviews

During these 20 days I brought Honda Corporate into the situation. With their help & guidance to the tech they still could not fix the problem. NHTSA has extended the warranty for this issue to 10 years and I was not the first to request a fix. COMMUNICATIONS: Follow up calls to service were difficult at best. The service writers were nice but nothing fixed the problem. Over the 20 days in service I requested a loner car each time non were available to me. I brought the Assistant Service Manager into the situation after many phone request throughout the 20 days and after never hearing back until I picked up the vehicle. At that time he only honored my 15% coupon and no further cost adjustments. NEXT STEP: Follow up with NHTSA (I retired from NHTSA after 32 years service), Find another Honda Dealer who can fix their own vehicle make.

Fast forward to last week, when I decided to buy out my lease. I knew going in that I was going to have a hard time because dealerships don’t like when you buy out a lease. I came prepared: I did my research and got pre-approved for an auto loan from a bank to buy out the car. Prior to going in, I called the leasing company and asked for the total buyout amount, and they told me it was $21k. Keep that in mind. When we got to the dealership, we were thrown from salesman to salesman, and everyone was rude the minute we stated that we weren’t interested in buying or leasing a new car. I understand that you work off commission, but it’s common decency to treat all customers with basic respect.

After we met the main salesman, Jermaine (or something like that), he took us to his office and immediately started gaslighting us into thinking that buying out the lease wasn’t an option. He talked down to me and my sister and laughed at us when we asked questions—extremely condescending. He came back with almost $3k in extra fees that he couldn’t explain. He also lied about whether those fees were required.

We asked for an itemized breakdown of all the fees, and it literally stated that half of them were optional. When we pointed that out, he visibly got upset and pretended to go talk to his manager. At this point, I was enraged by the unprofessionalism. He came back and claimed that the only reason the fees were marked “optional” was because the dealership had the option to sell us the car with those fees—which makes no sense.

I also want to point out that we were kept waiting for hours throughout this entire process. We were there for a total of 8 hours, by the way. Eventually, we asked to speak with the manager. When the manager came in, he confirmed that the fees were optional, and we basically had to haggle to get some of them removed. I still ended up paying half of those fees, which was honestly ridiculous.

Then, when it was time to pay, the original salesman tried to charge me the original price, thinking I wouldn’t notice. I have never been so shocked by the lack of integrity from a company in my life. The moment they realized we weren’t falling for their games, they treated us like trash. They tried to overwhelm us with numbers and paperwork to intimidate us. I’m literally an accountant.

At one point, he gave me a packet to sign, and at least two of the documents included additional optional fees that he assumed I would sign without reading. Once again, he became visibly upset when I called him out. These people have no morals and think the general public is stupid. DO NOT waste your time here. Go somewhere else if you can, and don’t make the same mistake I did.

The next day I went back and they were going to take my car as a trade in. I signed some paperwork with the salesman and then had to wait for their finance guy. When I said I had to wait I mean I had to W-A-I-T!! Meanwhile my friendly salesman disappeared. He figured he got his commission so he was gone. I finally see the finance guy and he tries to sell me a bunch of things I don’t need. I signed my paperwork and I was on my way.

I can’t remember if it was the day after the purchase or the following day but I wake up in the morning and my battery is dead! The problem is all of your entry into the car is through the key fob. I looked up online how I can enter my car if the key fob is dead and I find a YouTube video. I get in my car but the car won’t start. I am not a happy camper at this point. I call the salesman and explain the situation and he tells me to drive the car to the dealership. I told him again the car won’t start. He tells me to jump it.

Now, I have the jumper cables and family members who would help me but this friendly salesman has inconvenienced me and I decide to inconvenience him. I ask him how am I supposed to jumpstart it? He says fine, he is going to drive to me and jump the car. I am about 5 or 6 miles away - it’s not really a big deal but screw him he made the sale. So I wait for him and when I say I waited for him, I mean I W-A-I-T-E-D for him. So after an hour and half I call him and get his voicemail and ask him where the hell are you? He calls me back pretty quickly and tells me he is coming and I need to calm down. I just got even madder! Eventually he gets to my house and jumpstarts the car and tells me to drive it to the dealership and they will repair it. So I wait for the repair and like I said before when I say I waited (well you get it by now). They end up putting in what looks like a Honda battery with a decent warranty, so I am happy again.

Fast forward to the Tuesday after Memorial day (about four days later). I try to get into the car and the battery is dead AGAIN!! I manage to get into the car. I also manage to get into the trunk to get my jumper cables. I jump the car and drive to the dealership and try to return the car. Now mind you this is four to six days after I bought it and the battery died twice - the used car manager says they don’t take returns. So I am spending another day at Planet Honda in Union getting my car repaired. Here is the thing that kills me - they are the number Honda dealership in NJ. I would hate to deal with another dealer if this is the number dealer. DO NOT BUY A CAR HERE! That is my opinion.