hawkeye62

When I took delivery of my 2017 MDX SH-AWD Tech, my wife discovered a small cut in the drivers seat. It was in a fold near the stitching and not visible without pushing on the seat. But, we were concerned about the cut expanding over a few years, so we asked for a replacement. Acura agreed to replace the seat. The work was done last week. When we picked up the car, the drivers seat was a mess of wrinkles and loose, poor fitting leather. We were horrified. The service manager told us that the seat had been repaired with a "slip cover" of pre stitched leather and that the wrinkles would tighten up over the next two months. He admitted that the seat would never look new again. We complained very loudly. He agreed to take the seat out and replace it with a seat from a new car on the lot. So, I now have a perfect seat in my new MDX. If I had been told about the "repair" procedure at the beginning, I would not have approved. And, the service manager told me that another option would have been a procedure that uses epoxy and buffing to repair small defects, which I would have approved. I am a happy camper with the final outcome.


Regards, Jim

moose66

Interesting. Glad that worked out in your favor. Certainly would have helped had you been given ALL of the repair specifics up front. But what about that seat (your old one)? I wonder will the dealer just plop that back into the car it removed the new one from? Some unsuspecting soul, not as observant as you, might get swindled. I guess better them than you? Hopefully not and it turns out to be a warranty claim for the dealer Acura corp can cover.

hawkeye62

The service manager said he was going to put my old seat into a new loaner. He said he needed a new MDX loaner, so I guess my new seat came from the new loaner and my old seat was going into the new loaner. The MDX loaner that they gave me had 3700 miles on it. Which makes me wonder. What do they do with the loaners? They can't be sold as used until they have been registered to an individual owner. I guess they give deep discounts to sell them as new, toward the end of the model year?

Regards, Jim

2012wagon

Local Acura dealers all buy their loaners from Acura, and register them. They depreciate them, and after a year sell all service loaners as CPO cars here
Tons of them.

mellonc

I am assuming you bought a new car. I don't know why the dealer had to deceive you to do a cheap repair job. They should give you a new part as Honda sells the seat bottom leather cover as a new part. I have a feeling this is a dealer double dip attempt.

Basically they filed the warranty claim on your behalf. Then they probably charged the corporate for the full repair and gave you a cheap solution and pocketed the difference.

You should check with with corporate and find out what was actually billed to them. It sounds very fishy.

hawkeye62

The "repair" consisted of installing what I call a leather slip cover. I my case it was the seat back including the sides and the top of the sides that stick up near the head rest. It comes the factory with all of the stitching in place. The whole "slip cover" fits over the padded seat frame. They say that it is the same unit used in the factory, but the factory steams it after installation so that it is a tight, winkle free seat. The local shops don't have the equipment to do the steaming, so they simply let it "age" for 2-3 months, but it still never looks like new. I suppose they could have charged Acura for a new seat and then used the slip cover.

Regards, Jim