Folks who have been around the block once or twice usually know better, but sometimes there’s a certain peace of mind that comes with bringing a car to an authorized dealership for maintenance, rather than an independent shop. I mean, who else would be better equipped to take care of your vehicle than the same folks who sold it to you, right? They represent an entire car company, no way they’d risk their professional reputation playing games, no?
As it turns out, that’s not always the case. Shocker.
Gabriel Rendon took to Facebook to tell the story of how he allegedly drove his Honda to San Antonio, Texas’ Northside Honda this past Saturday looking to get a simple oil change. When the dealership took the car in, it allegedly told Rendon that the car also needed new transmission and brake fluids, as well as a new battery. Despite Rendon allegedly telling the service advisor that he only wanted the oil change this weekend and that he’d “come back in a couple of weeks to get the rest done,” the dealership allegedly went ahead and did all of the work regardless, and slapped Rendon with a $480 bill.
“I told them that I specifically said to only do the oil, and after arguing for a while [after the fact] they ended up deciding to take the new battery back and put my old one back in,” Rendon wrote on Facebook. “So they took my car to the back and I ended up waiting for almost an hour for them to put my old battery back and I wondered why it took an hour to put my battery back. Well, this is why.”
Beware: there is some language in the video that is NSFW or children.
The dash cam footage shows the car being driven back into the service area where a dealership employee—who is incorrectly wearing his mask beneath his mustache—can be seen saying to the person driving: “We’re gonna let this mothaf***a sit an hour cuz the guy’s a f***in’ a**hole and he—’I didn’t tell you to do it, I didn’t tell’—Well, okay motherf***er, you’re gonna stand outside and wait for an hour.”
As egregiously unprofessional as it is, making a customer wait an extra hour purely out of spite actually seems pretty tame as far as misbehaving car dealerships go. At least Northside Honda isn’t teaching its employees how to drive stick on customer Type R’s or dropping NSX’s off of lifts, right?
The sad thing is, if Rendon’s telling of the story is accurate, he didn’t do anything wrong so we’re not even sure what to take away from this story other than…don’t patronize horrible dealerships? Easier said than done, I know.
For any dealership employees in the crowd, however, there are a handful of lessons here that should be very clear: Don’t commission work that the customer specifically turned down and not expect pushback, behave as if every car in the shop has a dash cam that’s turned on at all times, and lastly, if you absolutely must call a customer a “motherf***er,” save it for when you’re back in the employee lounge.
We called Northside Honda where a service advisor acknowledged the existence of the video but refused to comment.
Interestingly enough, the dealership even has a fancy-pants video on YouTube where it brags about its “coffee cafe” and the incredible experience it offers its customers.
“Here at Northside Honda, we have a modern, state-of-the-art facility. We offer Honda’s Express Lane service. That means first come, first serve, Express maintenance while you wait.”
Emphasis on wait.
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