Complaint Review: Morehead Honda

David 

Le Roy NY 14482

08/01/2015

Mr. Higgins
General Manager
1000 Auto Park Place
Newburgh NY 12550

Dear Mr. Higgins

I thought I would write you about an experience I had at Morehead Honda on Friday 8/14/15 at approximately 2:00pm and many hours later.  I owned business years ago and I thought that I would pass it on.

I live near Rochester NY and wanted to purchase a vehicle, 2011 Certified Honda Pilot that I viewed over the web.  I called and spoke many times with your salesmen’s Alonzo Taylor-Ruiz.  I requested that Alonzo personally check the vehicle several times, so that my wife and I do not take a day off from work and travel 10 hours to pick-up a problematic vehicle.  I received several confirmations that the vehicle was in premier shape.  I checked the rating of your dealership and it was very good, so I trusted the salesperson.  Upon arriving I met with Mr. Taylor-Ruiz.  Upon checking the vehicle I observed major damage to the exterior, passenger lower front door and the upper post near the passenger door.  I also observed the following:  Second Row Seat would not lock to the rear, which I would assume would be a safety issue, broken molding on carpet, just laying on floor and that several leather seats were dirty (no big deal, just a little disappointing).  I’ve purchased several certified Honda’s from Dealers and everything is checked interior and exterior.  I thought Honda required this check to certify the vehicle?

 I was very disappointed and upset that Mr. Taylor did not check the vehicle or disclosed the damage to me.  I asked Mr. Taylor why he had not told me about the damage and he did not respond or apologize. Mr. Taylor contracted another person to get involved; I think it was Mr. Bray/Sales Manager.  Mr. Bray and Mr. Taylor offered the following solutions:

• They would repair the damage and ship the car to me.  I did not feel comfortable at this point feeling that the salesmen had lied to me several times and did not disclose the damage.  I did not want to pay for a vehicle and trust that everything will be repaired when it was delivered.  I don’t think any rational person would take this option.
• They offered me 500.00 off the price and I would get the repair fixed myself.  I am not a collision man, but did not feel this would cover the cost.  They both assured me this would cover the cost of repair.  I was still unconvinced. They made me another offer of taking 1000.00 off the price but continued to feel this would not cover the repair.  After they both assured me that this would be enough money to repair the vehicle, I still was doubtful but wanted to believe them.  Mr. Taylor made a good proposal, that I could bring the vehicle to a collision shop in the area to determine the cost of repair.  Mr. Taylor asked me to agree if the price was different from the 1000.00 that Morehead offered, that I  would reduce the allotment provided to me.  I agreed that if the price was different it would be OK. Mr. Taylor told one of your support staff members to ride to the shop with us to get an estimate.  Mr. Taylor named the shop, which I was apprehensive about, but continued to trust your dealership.  I, my wife and one of your support staff went to the shop.  The owner was at the shop and estimated the cost would be $1500.00 at the least and typically around $2000.00.  After returning to the shop, they Mr. Bray stated that they would not reduce the price to cover the repairs.  To me it’s unbelievable, you pick the shop, you made me verbally commit to take a body shop estimate that I don’t even know, and then when the estimate comes in higher you don’t have the honor to be committed to the estimate. 
• Mr. Bray gave us a 25.00 gift card in the parking lot upon leaving.  I was so upset I threw the gift card in the parking lot.   How can you accept business practice like this? 
• In my mind it all started with the salesmen’s not taking the time to check the vehicle.  If he would have told me about the damage, we would have not made the trip and taken the time off.   

Upon leaving your shop, we went to --------- Honda and purchase 2011 Certified Honda Pilot in perfect shape and it was clean.  Was in and out within 1 ½ hours. 

I don’t think this happens all the time, because your ratings are good and may be a few rogue employees that are not trained properly.  If you sell a vehicle at cost once, would be better than having customers leave legitimately upset.  I think if this happened to you, you would be distraught also.  Thanks for your attention.

Sincerely,

David

David