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Good Morning Everyone,
The issue I have, my fiancee and I bought a honda fit brand new. The only service which has been done on this car has been at the same dealership.
It currently has 40,000 km on the ODO. We have done 3 oil changes all done by the dealership also there was one recall item fixed.It has been a week or so since the last oil change, we took about a 4 hour trip over the weekend and started hearing a load noise at highway speeds on our way home. Needless to say it ended up being the splash shield on the bottom of the car had come loose. I was forced to attempt to fix it on the side of the road being completely attacked my bugs. Upon trying to fix it I found that there were only 3 of 6 screws holding it to the bottom of the car. I was able to remove the entire piece and we went on our way, it took about 30 min as I had no tools with me and was using a dime as a screw driver.
What really gets me going are a few things:
– only 3 oil changes have been done and in this time 3 screws have gone missing. it is a honda dealership if they see screws missing i would gladly pay for them to replace the screws as they found the issue.
– on the previous recall issue they scratched the car which they owned up to but they did not do a great job of making my fiancee feel not taken advantage of. We got the car back and it was not cleaned and you could tell that the scratch was just buffed out. I thought ok lets get through the 3 free oil changes and we can go from there.
– had I not been in the car, when this problem presented itself it would have been a tow and possibly hotel stay to get it fixed or a half day off work for me.
– Upon inspecting the splash shield it is evident that only the 3 screws were tightened that last time the shield was placed back on the car.I am tempted to just ask for the missing screws and the plastic screws I had to break in order to get the part off the car while on the side of the road, but I am also tempted to ask for more. With asking for more comes the same shop which I now have no faith in working on the car again.
Do i just cut my losses and ask for the hardware?
What would you guys typically do?
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As usual, you don’t say where in the world market you’re car from or what your car specifically is (model year matters, saying ‘brand new’ doesn’t mean anything because it’s an expression).
I’m going to start by saying that changing oil every 8000 miles is neglect. It’s safe to say that you’re splash shield has to be removed for every oil change. Being a dealer tech in the northern US, where everything rusts, it’s common that the small fasteners that hold that shield become seized by your mileage in any area that roads are salted during the winter. That shield may not have seized fasteners if it were in for oil changes frequently enough. I know it shouldn’t be that way, but it is. Blame the manufacturer for the metal they choose to make the fasteners out of, the dealer has no control at all with that.
They have 2 ‘good’ options when that happens:
1) Come out to the waiting room and tell you your oil change has doubled in price so they can properly secure your neglected splash shield
2)The tech just gets the whole thing out of there (like you did) and says nothing because it’s likely that you (the customer) will never know the difference.
What happened to you was the 3rd, less good option:
3) nervous tech half-assed attached neglected splash shield, hoping it would be fine but glad to to not have a random shield in their garbage can so a boss can see it walking by and yell at them for doing that. Ironically, the tech coming up and saying that the shield needs parts and labor time to attach properly is nothing any service advisor ever wants to hear. That kind of thing is never covered by any manufacturer warranty and customers get furious when asked to pay for it.
Bottom line is that when it comes to shields, it’s as bad for us as it is for you. Be mad at the manufacturers, we are just the intermediary between you and them.
As for oil change ever 8000miles that is when the service light for an oil change comes on, should I be changing it sooner? It is synthetic and not a blend but I wouldn’t mind your opinion on this as I will be doing the oil changes from now on.
I quickly looked up the service mileage and first oil change at 10k miles, change filter at 15kmiles the full change at 20k miles again with the next oil change showing 30k miles. It seems that the car maintence light is not synced with these mile markers. Which is not what I thought.
It is a 2015 model year car. It has only seen one winter. I am from southern ontario yes I am in the salt belt but last winter really wasn’t that bad. I know these screws do have a tendency to strip. I guess the one thing that got to me is we do not sit a wait for the oil change to be done, we usually drop the car off and it is done when the technicians have a chance at a honda dealership. These fasteners are only fastened into plastic but yes on my old vw golf I think I only have a few left because of this same issue, but then again it is 10 years old.
I do sympathize with the technicians in the fact that an oil change does not make money unless you get it done quick.
I guess my real question is should I ask for the fasteners and put them in myself or in your opinion would that be a shitty customer?
I appreciate the work and would definitely not want someone to have to waste there time putting the stupid shield back on.
Fopeano I appreciate your response
Thank you
The VW lower shields were designed by someone with a special place reserved for them in hell. The ones on the fits are better designed.
The dealer should have a supply of the fasteners needed for undercarriage shields and simply be replacing them as needed at no cost to the customer. The one I worked at did. Any way you look at it $1 for a screw is cheaper than dealing with any problem that may arise from it not being installed.
If you’ve ever driven through snow that was deep enough that it rubbed along the shield there is a chance it was damaged. It really can take next to nothing for everything to get mangled and broken. Once part of it is broken the rest of it won’t last long before it cracks and falls down.
I would go back and have them try to figure out what went wrong, to the effect of “let’s figure out why it happened”. There should be about 10 fasteners holding that thing on. There’s a wide variety of reasons why it might have come loose and without actually seeing the complete picture assigning blame may be premature.
If they give you a half assed reasoning or try to make you pay to repair it, I would say just pull the damn thing off. It’s there for the same reason you probably don’t have a spare tire. To give a slight increase in fuel economy.
As for the service intervals, personally 8000kms is a bit long. They do it so they can say the overall cost of ownership is lower. I would move to a 6-7000 interval with a B service once a year, or every third service. I never saw any oil ring related consumption issues on the Fits, but it is common in the 6 cylinders and larger 4 cylinders. It also relates to how your car is driven, if it’s all city I would definitely tighten it up a bit. But if you’re on the highway endlessly 8000 should be fine.
The only thing you can do in a shop is tell them ahead of time that you know this will be a problem and you’re alright with any associated expenses. The problem is that is so uncommon for a customer to understand and acknowledge it that it’s unlikely that they will actually believe you. I know that sounds ridiculous and it is, but that’s just the reality of it.
Being that you will be doing oil changes yourself, you can buy the correct replacement fasteners and keep the threads lubricated with grease. The bolts typically thread into speed nuts. When they seize, the speed nuts tear the heck out of the plastic that they’re clipped onto, which you may find when you go under there with time to look around. Sometimes there’s no place left to install a new speed nut if it got too damaged.
I don’t think it would make you a shitty customer to ask for replacement fasteners, but understand that Honda will not pay for them. It’s either you or the dealer. I do like Firnz’s idea of taking it back with the attitude of “lets figure out why it happened”. With the car in the shop with a repair order, there may be a way for them to get Honda warranty to pay. Like DaFirnz said, his shop covered the cost of dealing with belly pans, mine ‘sort of’ does, every dealer handles it their own way.
The manufacturer’s attitude on splash shields is basically “it was caused by outside influence, so it’s not our problem”. Whether the customer drives it over something and breaks it or a tech screws it up and leaves it half-assed after service, it’s not warranty. It never is.
Armed with this information, I wish you the best of luck in dealing with it. Feel free to ask any further questions.
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