Dear Honda,

Let me start out by saying I am a Honda person. We own two acuras and two Hondas and have a mower powered by Honda. My father is also about to be a Honda owner. I love my Hondas and want success at the company.

This post is specifically about dealer service department training. But sales staff training is also lacking is most instances (both at Acura and at Honda).

Dealer trainning is vital to the success of the company. While they are not owned by Honda, they ARE the face of Honda. This is especially truck regarding the service department.

The service department of the dealership I went to (THE largest in the Houston Metro area) appears to be very unaware of the new maintenance minder feature of the new Hondas. One the first occation, I stopped by asking for the cost of the "B6 service" for the Honda Ridgeline. They asked me how many miles I have and proceeded to say "well that is close to the xxx mile service and it would cost xxx". The trouble with thsi is, the B6 calls for a rear diff change and this was not on their list.
The second encounter was this morning, same dealership. I figured I would go in and just get the oil and rear diff changed. I can handle the rest myself as I am fairly good under the hood. As I pull in and told them what I wanted... they said "well we don't change the rear diff fluid till 15,000 usually". My response was: "the minder is telling me to change it now and that's what I would like done". "ok sir, but we don't normally...." If they were a little better trained, this conversation would have stopped at the minder said to do it now.

Now imagine the issues down the road? If the rear diff fails, the owner would wonder why, "hey I took it in for regular service". Then would proceed to qualify this as a by Honda product.

I usually don't take my vehicals in to service at dealerships EXACTLY because of poor training. S2000's have gone in and come out with busted rear diff because they put VTM-4 fluid instead of 90W fluid. And that's just one example.

Sales and customer service is important. But remember, poor service department is also a HUGE reflection on Honda reliability and Honda's name in general.

Thanks,
-Shing
Houston, TX

I just made a phone call to a certain dealership to ask about the B6 service for the Honda RidgeLine and the SA who use to be a Tech just a few short months ago said he wasn't aware of it.
That's scary Honda. How are we suppose to maintain our warranty under your specs when your dealers don't know what to do with our vehicles?? :eek: rhetorical statement :D

How are we suppose to maintain our warranty under your specs when your dealers don't know what to do with our vehicles??:eek:
Consumer knowledge and perseverance. That's the trouble with 1st year models. BTW, the '06 Pilot uses MM too, so they should become more familiar with the system before too long, I hope. In the meantime, I'll look the codes up on owner's link (or owner's manual) and request the specific service I want Honda to do, if any, and do the others myself.

I do agree Shingles although Honda service and sales personnel are not the only ones that suffer from lack of training. My personal experience with my local dealer for both service and sales has actually been very good. They have delivered consistently good service and have earned my confidence. They have also earned my repeat business. I also recognize that this particular dealership is exceptional. Out of all of the car and truck dealers in our area, there is one good Chevy dealer and one good Ford / Chrysler dealer that I have dealt with. In those cases the dealers were good but the products disappointed me and let me down. The others have failed to perform on numerous occasions over the years or have had bad personal recommendations from people that I know and trust. I am much more tolerant of weak sales personnel than I am of poor service. Even though I am very sensitive to everything in the sales environment and the sales experience, I can put a salesperson's shortcomings in perspective pretty quickly. If they are one of those sleazy, tricky, con-artist type sales people, the service department will never get the opportunity to show me how good they are because I will not waste my time with with that dealership for allowing that type of customer interaction in the first place. On the other hand, if a salesperson is new or not as knowledgeable as I would like but they try to do their best and are honest, I am OK with that. It is the service department that keeps me coming back to purchase additional vehicles, not the cheapest price of the vehicle alone. That all comes back to your point Shingles, training that leads to delivering good service is essential. I am sure that Honda has minimum standards that service personnel must meet in order to perform specific tasks. Every dealer is independently owned and operated and as such are different. The environment that the service personnel work in and their attitude towards their work and towards customers is largely driven by the ownership and management of the individual dealership. The exceptional dealerships have a commitment to providing exceptional customer service and they understand that training is not an option, it is the key to their success. It does not take too long to sort out the exceptionally good and the exceptionally bad dealerships. In the middle it can get a little dicey!

I found the exact same thing when I purchased my RL. Before I had a chance to read the owner's manual and find out about the maintenance minder, I asked the dealer about service intervals because I had never owned a Honda before. He proceeded to tell me that typically Honda recommends oil changes every 3,000 miles or so and I would really only need to bring it to the dealer for a couple of major services.:confused:
I didn't think this sounded right, so I went home and read the manual and found out about the maintenance minder.
I really wish instead of just trying to sell vehicles, the dealers were a little more knowledgeable about ALL of the details of the vehicle.
Good Post Shingles!