jginnane

Two days ago, it was time for a first oil change at 5,000. Instead of going up the street, I thought it good to meet the service people where we bought the car -- Acura of Ocean, NJ.

So I called them up, and said, "LOF, initial 5K, change to Mobil One. Can you tell me what time to bring it in today on a wait basis?"

The rep replied that it would have to be a Scheduled Appointment, and the soonest available was a week from Friday. First week in June. (!!!)

When people talk about averages, they mention bell curves, terms like mean, median, and mode, and "standard deviation". All these technical terms precisely describe common things, and help identify deviations from the norm.

Applied to a regular lube, oil, and filter for a car, this might mean out of say 1,000 dealerships, the difference between having the job completed in 15 minutes, a half hour... or even 3 hours (for a long wait). Maybe 01.%, ten dealers, would take 3 hours.

So -- when you are told that you must wait 240 HOURS to bring your car in for the most routine maintenance it is possible to do on a car, there is apparently a serious problem. Whatever the internal explanation -- and there might be a good one, like the place just burned down -- the dealership needs to refocus on providing service to customers.

The GM at this dealership called me today, and it appears I might be the problem in expecting service in a reasonable timeframe. He advised (when I told him I intended to discuss this publicly) that "sooner or later, you're going to need us" -- a poorly-veiled threat at best.

I would advise people to steer clear of this Acura dealership until they resolve their internal problems and are able to offer acceptable service to the public. We love the car, but just like a beautiful ship, there seem to be barnacles attaching themselves to the hull.

cc: Acura_Auto_Client_Services@ahm.honda.com

slo007

You are mis-guided. You need an appointment because the dealer wants to have a loan car available; which requires advance planning since they don't keep any on standby.

If you told them you didn't need a loan car, I'm sure they could fill you in earlier.

jginnane

Yeah, I'm afraid that's exactly what I meant in my original message when I said "...bring it in today on a wait basis". Never heard of needing a loaner for a lube-oil-filter -- it would take that long, 10-15 minutes, to fill out paperwork for a loaner car and drived to the front of the lot.

ric

I confirmed (in writing) with my Acura dealorship that they will see me on an emergency basis immediately, and for scheduled maintenance they like up to 72 hours, which is apparently their policy. They have extended weekend hours and loaners for scheduled maintenance. I did this after a disasterous experience with my VW; dealor in Cherry Hill required two weeks for everything - except the time I drove in with the shattered windows in the door pockets and told them the car could sit on their #$%^&*)( lot until they did fix it, and that - since it was on their lot, they were responsible for the weathertightness and the safety. THAT time, I got the car back in two days.

I would do exactly what you did and let Acura know exactly how you feel; this may be a rogue dealor who has a captive market and thinks he can get away with it, or he is understaffed and doesn't know how to cope.

jginnane

This might be why there's a thread going about a hundred bucks for an oil change.

I can go to ANY Jiffy-Lube in the country. For 20 minutes and some twenty bucks, I can get a moron psychopath who will torque on the oil drain plug (stripping the threads on the pan), fill the windshield washer fluid with water in midwinter, and forget to put the oil filler cap back. (Yes, these things actually happened at the nearest Jiffy Lube. I have not been back to see if they've gotten better.)

But -- to get to people who know how to spell "ACURA" correckdly -- I think it's rather excessive to have to schedule ten days in advance.

Yes, and the initial response I got from California was very positive. The district sales manager was going to get involved, a permanent record, etc. etc. Unfortunately ... after that opening salvo, the matter dropped into a black hole. Two weeks ago I got a survey questionnaire asking how pleased I was with AHS followup -- and I indicated that nothing had been done. (Nothing got done after THAT response, either.)

Maybe they're filming Candid Camera in this area?

I will say that the "general manager" indicated by numerous comments that he probably wouldn't know how to pop the hood on a car, let alone fix anything in there. Fair enough... I'll know how to address this in the future. And your notion of getting a service-level commitment in writing is the smartest thing I've read in this forum this month.

newtsxowner

Hey, I bought an Integra from Ocean Acura in 1994 and they weren't any better than. I think the problem is that this particular dealership is in a pretty affluent area and they are too busy servicing the higher end stuff to make room for your TSX. I say this because I was basically told by a service person back in the day that Integra's were not the priority. By the way, my dealership in PA told me that they will do a oil change in 1 hour tues, wed, thurs without an appointment but monday/friday will be longer and they recommend an apointment.

jginnane

Darn. Ten years ago, huh? I wish, I really wish, I'd had some feedback on this dealer before we made the decision about the car. That's a malignancy that Acura/AHS has let fester WAY too long.

"Higher end" in the Acura line means, I assume, the RL, MDX, and TL. Ironic because this year's RL reminded us of nothing so much as a 3-year old Buick (altho' more intelligently done); the MDX was great for 2 years but loses out to the Touareg and other models this year, and the redesigned TL with its ugly side gash was an also-ran. IOW, Acura has models they sell for more $$$, but these don't appeal to us in any way. (And it's not as if we couldn't have our pick.)

Then this dealership needs to be out of business. Or they need the amount of business they get to be reduced to a level where their competency can handle it.

Sad to say, the profoundly negative initial experience from the service dept of this dealer is exactly the kind of thing that would have crossed this car off our list of models. If we'd heard from other people what kind of operation was being run here, we would have gone with a Lexus or Infiniti instead -- even though those models didn't meet our other criteria as well as the TSX.

bob shiftright

No direct service experience ... but Ocean tied with Langhorne for the WORST quote in the tri-state area when I bid my car! When I went there to look at a car I was, basically, ignored. My wife, usually about the kindest person in the world, wondered aloud if they actually want to sell cars or if the dealership is really in some other sort of business!

I've bought parts from them, generally trivial things like fasteners that I've broken and they seem to have a skimpy parts inventory. They've always gotten the part within a couple of days, but they've aways needed order the parts.

I have absolutely no plans to bring my car there for any sort of routine service.

I've said this too many times before, but the TSX is basically an Accord with a tight suspension and if ANY ASE-Certified tech can't find his way around it well enough to do the routine servicing, he should give up and work at Starbucks!

jginnane

Well, if you've been there, you've been within five miles of my home.

Sales was peculiar, too. The Saturday sales guy "Jim" became the "Internet manager", so he wasn't around to complete negotiations, but then when I actually bothered to visit their website, I saw no trace of this "Jim". I think 4-5 people at this outfit work the Net sales.

And like another thread here, they asked for a credit card when they took the quote to the sales manager. (And the physical card didn't come back too quick, either.) I think if I ever experience that tactic again, I will ask the salesman for HIS personal credit card, then read his numbers into my cellphone. "Trust is trust." )

Too many people standing in the well-lighted areas, looking too well-dressed to actually want to do anything like _service_ a car. It's like they're waiting for a MTV crew to pull in and video some random slice of "real life"... but they're not producing anything, like "Pimp My Ride", so I'd have to say it's a long shot at best.

I'm expecting to skip them, too. Thing is, there's probably going to be some warranty work in the next few years. Next most convenient Acura dealer is Open Road in North Brunswick, about 25 miles. I feel like I got jammed.

The best I can do is tell people to AVOID this place. The Lexus dealer's a half mile north, Infiniti is about a mile further (with the new BMW location in-between). If Acura consistently wins on the specs that matter to you and you're willing to put up with an all-hat-no-cattle type of dealership, then you might do slightly better by getting service levels committed in writing before you acquire your car. (And meet the service manager, and make sure your name sticks in his ear.)

But the blame really has to go back to AHS, if this is S.O.P. for this dealership over the last 10 years.

bob shiftright

One of the more attractive features of the TSX is that it really doesn't need much service. Up to the 110,000 mile service everything is pretty much a "piece of cake". At 110,000 you actually have to go and look for the spark plugs! Anyway, I bought the Official Service Manual, some oil filters and crush filters, and a couple of air filters and pollen filters over the internet and figure all should be well.

For purposes of comparison, I bought my Volvo from Red Bank, and while some of the techs are excellent, others are drug-crazed gorillas and you never know who will get to work on your car. The Volvo has been (ahem) "maintenance-intensive", because it required things like spark plugs every 30k, because it's computer requires communication with the Volvo mothership computer to turn off the service reminder light and because something is always going wrong. So my solution was to buy a car that should't break too often. At this point in ownership I had had the Volvo back to the dealer about a dozen times, for the TSX it's been 0. If the service is going to suck no matter what you buy, why not buy something that doesn't require much service? So far, so good.

jginnane

That's about where we're going with this. In fact -- these exact items are on my shopping list, and we need one of the Sponsoring Vendors here to make a nice Group Buy bundle for 12- and 24-month supplies of all the above.

(I've seen the Mobil oversized oil filter on Ebay and was getting ready to order a box full, but something told me I hadn't fully addressed the issue yet. There might be better arrangements, IOW.)

Similar experience to the ML-320 we traded in for the TSX, and we *almost* got a Volvo, instead. (I persuaded her back then the V was too fugly.) Nice handling, but after the warranty ran out, you couldn't risk an oil change at the MB dealership without having an extra $700 in repairs they "discovered", like a mass air sensor. The car itself wasn't good enough to make up for that (but, to be fair, we didn't mind when they were tacking on BS repairs under warranty to soak Daimler-Chrysler).

The most recent disqualifier involving the Volvo dealership down here (Wall/Manaquan) was this February (when we got the TSX). We'd read up on the S40, and Ford-Volvo had a good-looking website. But no one at this dealership had read a car magazine, or an article on the web, or anything ... two weeks before official rollout of the car, these people were clueless. (And yet, surprisingly arrogant, besides. I always hate it when people are both arrogant #and# ignorant, because then I wind up making an undeserved political characterization that might not be true of ALL Republicans.