Complaint Review: Bob Barbour/ Hendrick Honda

 We puchased a 2008 Ford Taurus X from Bob Barbour Honda around the middle of October. The day we test drove the car there was a wet dog smell in the car. The salesman told my wife that the previous owner must have had a dog and said he would have the car cleaned and would deliver it to us the next day. We took delivery of the car and a few days later we set off for a vacation in Williamsburg. We stayed over night and left late the following afternoon. We arrived home late and decided to leave the luggage in the car till the next morning.  We woke to a dreary rainy day and decided to go out and get our stuff out of our nice new car. When we opened the rear dor we noticed everything was soaked. We immediately called the dealer and were asked to bring it by and the would take a look and let us know how much it would cost to fix it. Iasked why it would cost anything considering they had sold me a bumper to bumper warranty. They kindly informed me that this was not covered by the warranty. I felt a little taken at that point but I figured I would call my insurance company and see if I could go ahead and file a claim. The informed me that because it was a pre-existing condition that they could do nothing. After a lot of back and forth with the dealer and an e-mail to there coporate headquarters, I was finaly asked to bring the car in and they would fix it at no charge a week plus later.

I took the car in and after 2 days they called and said it was fixed. We picked the car up on a nice sunny day and it didnt rain for about 3 days. The first day of rain and sure enough the back of the car was soaked. We called the dealer again and they said bring it in, we did. This time they had all the way thru the week of thanksgiving. We were told that they had a specialist fix it this time and that it was fine. We took the car home and 2 days later we woke up and loaded into the car for the local perade. As soon as we got in my soon wanted to watch a movie in the cars dvd player. We flipped it down and splash, water from the sunroof all the way back to the rear door. We called the dealer and were told to bring it in once again. We did. They had it 3 days again and told us they cant reproduce the leak and that they dont even see any where there was water in the headliner. We rushed to the dealer because we were told they had taken the entire headliner down and we were curious to see for our selves. When we arrived the car was all put back together and vaccumed and sitting at a big fan drying everything. They pulled the car around and we relunctantly left with it once again. We drove to the closest car wash to check it out for ourselves. We were told they had sprayed it for 2 hours with a pressure washer. We took it thru the car wash and magicaly it rained in the car. I couldnt figure out where from so we pulled it into a self wash bay. I got inside while my fiance walked around the car spraying anywhere he felt it could be leaking. As soon as he got to the sun roof i slid the visor back and it was pooring in.

I immediately told him to stop. We called both the local police department and the general manager of the dealership and had them come to the car wash. The officer watched as the GM and his service manager got into the front seats and had me spray the sunroof again. Thaey demanded we stop spraying immediately as they were being drenched. We were told to take it beck to Bob Barbour/Hendrick Honda again for another loaner and they will once again fix it for the fifth time. While all this is going on from day one of the leaking were are being told they can help us get another car with between 5 and 10 thousand dollars down. This is because of the negative equity left by the car. They have only offered a 3rd of the total they are asking for as a down payment to help us. This trade would also raise the negative equity and the interest causing us to pay nearly double what any car would cost. In turn if we trade the car they would be able to sale it and make money and also they would make money off of the new sale. We have requested a meeting with both Rick Hendrick and Bob Barbour, nether of which have contacted us nor to our knowledge have they been contacted. I hope to be able to come back and say this problem has been resolved, but at this point I am doubtful.