My letter to Honda, My name is Michael. My wife and I purchased a Honda CR-V from your dealership on October 11, 2017. Placing the our salesman Essam aside the experience has been nothing but a disaster. I will try to just touch on the points to not bore you with this email, but if you request we have typed up a specific timeline with times and dates of every issue up to and including the very unprofessional treatment from you Quality Assurance manager! First issue was the financing. It came to light when Mid-Florida bank noticed we over payed for the vehicle and had trouble making sense of the numbers. I was able to get a screenshot of some funky math and deceiving adds/subtractions that Mike "Smiley" the finance person placed in the software when developing our loan. My wife and I went back to the dealership and presented our case. Mike would not listen to what I was trying to explain to him with the breakdown of the contract. It took over a hour of him trying to divert and confuse me until I asked to speak to someone above him. This is when Jennifer (I believe that is her name, GM's wife) came into the picture to check the paperwork.
At first she did not see my dilemma until I asked Sten to pull up a screenshot of the " breakdown of the numbers" on his computer ( Sten is the person at your facility that performs all the signing of the purchase documents and offers the protection policy's). I would like to add that Jennifer and Sten did everything they could to help solve the problem and they did find a problem. I have original screenshots from Stens computer screen ....however this was not without cost. The pressure from Mike “Smiley” trying to force me to believe his math and the waste of 10 hours from start to finish - all with a bored three-year old had taken its toll and exhausted us. On October 17 the 6th day old Honda CR-V starting having computer issues. Bells and icons lighting up erratically on the dashboard console. The protection devices would start and stop on their own and we immediately drove back to your dealership. Stephanie accepted our car in for service and we were directed to give the shop a couple hours to run diagnostics.
After about 1.5 hours Stephanie informed us that she has bad news and that the our NEW car will need to have the entire dash removed to fix a known issue in every 1 in 1000 Honda CR-V's that pertains to water leaking into the vehicle and shorting out the main wiring harness and that it will take about 2 weeks to fix. I asked if we could speak to someone about exchanging for another vehicle. Stephanie put us in touch with Grant who is the Quality Assurance Manager at Brandon Honda, Florida. We explained the issues we have had with finance and now the brains of the vehicle and that we just wanted to have a "new" car that we have paid for and not a “1 in 1000 issue” vehicle that takes two weeks to rip apart (kinda kills the “newness” out of a $36,0000 vehicle). He stated he could not promise us anything and basically acted like he didn't give a cap and we were a bother. I told Grant that we would like to speak with Jennifer from earlier in this email. I stated that I believe she will support us in the swap after what we have already endured. Jennifer immediately approved the VIN swap and we were given a CR-V no bells and whistles slimmed down version to drive in the meantime while they locate us another CR-V EX-L.
Now, this really does not matter but the CR-V we bought was CR-V EX-L and the loaner was a very slimmed down version...again not complaining about that, but I am paying for a EX-L and I have been driving the loaner now for 9 days and with no end in site. Back to Grant the Quality Assurance Manager. Grant said that there are "plenty" of our CR-V's in our EX-L style and color and that he would have one for us by Thursday October 19 and to just come on innand they would do the VIN swap and we would be on our way. We mentioned to Grant at that time that we paid $600 for high quality tint on our CR-V and would like to be reimbursed since obviously the new CR-V would not have window tint ( we live in Florida, you need window tint). Grant said that the dealership would tint it for free. We then said could we just have this all done before we pickup the vehicle so we would not have to come to the dealership yet again for the appointment. Grant said it would not be a problem. Come in Thursday.
We came in Thursday and Grant was no where to be found. Reception paged him...nothing. We left to run errands and waited for Grant to call. We called Grant 3 times that day and left 2 voicemails. Never heard from him. The next day (Friday October 20) we figured Grant may have forgotten about us but he will call us today! – especially after getting all our voice mails! Nope! We called him twice on Friday (again we have a more specific timeline that we can give you which can be compared to your Call Accounting System of your PBX to verify) and no Grant. We called yet again Friday evening and had Grant paged. We were transferred to Grant and he spews that the CR-V still has not arrived and that he will call us back in 5 minutes to check on it. We never heard from him again that day and all weekend - nothing! Monday comes and again, fingers-crossed. No call. Monday comes and goes. Tuesday again nothing. We call him several times then have him paged and get transferred to Grant. No apologies from Grant. Just he doe's not know where the vehicle is and that he will call us back in 1 hour. My wife and I looked at each-other and both said "1 hour? Yay right" with a chuckle. Grant replied "Yes, I promise. A Hundred-hundred percent" whatever that means. Grant states “The vehicle should be on the delivery truck that’s coming in tonight. You can come in late tonight to pickup maybe” This is around 4p Tuesday. No not just did that our come and go but the whole day did . Never heard from Grant again that day .
Long story short, Grant never once made a effort to keep us informed on ANYTHING! We actually started finding humor in his promises. Now at the end of my rope I called Grant Wednesday afternoon as you probably guessed we STILL never received a call. Amazingly! Grant picked up and said hello in his forced cheerful voice. (I could tell he was annoyed because the receptionist asked who was calling for Grant before transferring me to him). The first thing I said to him is "What is wrong with you!" How come you NEVER call us back. Why do you make promises and then just drop us and leave us hanging!" He acted like this was all new news to him. He then had the audacity to say he's called us. I told him he's full of crap and that you have been apologetic for not getting back to us almost everytime we cornered you. His response, believe it or not was "I never apologized for how I have been handling this" I was shocked, I'm thinking are you kidding me, ego or what! I stating that I could not believe you are a “Quality Assurance Manager" and I'm going to your GM. Grant then states - "Then why didn't you just call him instead of attacking me?" Wow! I asked Grant to transfer me to his GM which he then hung up on me! Mind you, this is the Quality Assurance Manager!! LOL! I might have been loud and honest but I never used a derogatory statements or words. I immediately call back the front desk and demand to talk to the GM. I was transferred to Mr Robbie. I explained (to the best of my ability, still upset and angry from Grants un-professional "I don’t apologize", "Call my GM", Hang up on me attitude) the issues I had from start to finish.
Basically he apologized for Grant and was shocked as he has been a exceptional employee for 5-years but would have a talk with him. Mr. Robbie asked what can he do for us to get this resolved. I told Mr. Robbie that we just want to know if the new car we bought and paying for is ever going to be here so we may do the VIN swap and tinting. Mr. Robbie said he would check into this a would call me back in a hour. Mr. Robbie callex me back as promised and said the CR-V was there and getting tinted today and when would we like to pick it up tomorrow. I said my wife is at work right now (ER nurse, 12 hours shifts) and I would not know until tomorrow morning. Mr. Robbie said that’s fine to just call tomorrow. I explained that I do not want to deal with Grant and would like another direct contact. Mr. Robbie agreed and said that a Jonathan Soto would be my go to guy and that I could work with him directly from this point on and that he works a 12-9p shift tomorrow (which would be Thursday October 26). I thanked him and we hung up. Today I called at 12:30p to speak with Mr. Soto and received his voicemail. I called the front desk and the receptionist could see he was with a customer so she asked me to call back in a couple hours. I called back at approx 230p and again I got Mr. Soto's voicemail. I left a voicemail explaining the conversation I had with the GM and left my contact information. I wait...nothing. I call back at 445p and talk to reception. They could see he was with a customer.I again leave a voicemail and wait for it...nothing.
As I am writing this email at almost 9pm still nada. Another day of empty promises. We are stuck. Now my wife starts a three day stint at the hospital, 12hr shifts and for us to pick up the vehicle (well more like if we will ever be able to pick up the vehicle) she needs to be there to sign paperwork to do the VIN transfer….. we will not be able to do this for three days. Ridiculous! We have rotated and moved are schedules around our jobs and our three-years old needs multiple times now thinking basically (for 9 days now) that we would be picking up our vehicle. I am highly disappointed with this dealership. From the fiasco in finance, the "NEW" Honda breaking down..."to a tear-down fix" to repair and especially Grant and his horrible customer service, laughable really and now the newest member - Jonathan Soto. All it would of took was for someone to just check-in on us and let us know where things stood. Whether it be good or bad news, we deserved the courtesy and this dealership failed. I have since contacted Honda America. Told them my story. They will be sending a complaint supposedly directly to a District Manager. They seemed legitimately concerned. I also will be posting this experience on every Social Media platform available to me as this is a disgrace and your future customers need to be warned. If I could wash my hands of this purchase I would. If you want to know the one thing you could do to make this all go away. Take back your vehicle and cancel the entire purchase so I can go back to Toyota.
Sincerely, Mike and Danielle P.S. Too tired to run spell-check and verify punctuation, I've wasted enough time on this.
I purchased a used CR-V in near perfect condition. I paid for the car, did the paperwork, but it was late and I was on my motorcycle so they suggested I come back the next day to pick it up.
I showed up early and my salesman [Bill Kirk] looked surprised and told me they were finishing up the detailing. When it was finally ready I found the vehicle was backed into a parking space; one employee was shaking my hand, another was shoving a bag of cookies in the other, and someone else was opening my door for me.
When I got to the autoparts store to pick up a few things I noticed a fresh, not there last night, no rust in it dent. I called Brandon Honda to talk to Bill but he wasn't available. I texted him pics of the damage and asked him to call me back. For weeks I couldn't get a response. When I finally got angry I was contacted by Christine Conley and sent photos showing the damage and was told it was there when I purchased the car. I explained that I had printed the brochure photos showing no damage and she went silent again.
I finally got hold of Grant Hocking and was told I had to bring it in to Brandon Honda to have it repaired (even though they have no autobody repair shop). They will not let me get it repaired at a shop of my choice and have refused to give me the name and policy number of their liability carrier. "Captain Kirk" used our both being vets to help make the deal. Shame on you. I should have been told about the damage and you should have gone out of your way to make this right, instead Brandon Honda went out of their way to make this wrong. I won't use the free oil changes that came with the purchase of the vehicle.
Brandon Honda Reviews
My letter to Honda, My name is Michael. My wife and I purchased a Honda CR-V from your dealership on October 11, 2017. Placing the our salesman Essam aside the experience has been nothing but a disaster. I will try to just touch on the points to not bore you with this email, but if you request we have typed up a specific timeline with times and dates of every issue up to and including the very unprofessional treatment from you Quality Assurance manager! First issue was the financing. It came to light when Mid-Florida bank noticed we over payed for the vehicle and had trouble making sense of the numbers. I was able to get a screenshot of some funky math and deceiving adds/subtractions that Mike "Smiley" the finance person placed in the software when developing our loan. My wife and I went back to the dealership and presented our case. Mike would not listen to what I was trying to explain to him with the breakdown of the contract. It took over a hour of him trying to divert and confuse me until I asked to speak to someone above him. This is when Jennifer (I believe that is her name, GM's wife) came into the picture to check the paperwork.
At first she did not see my dilemma until I asked Sten to pull up a screenshot of the " breakdown of the numbers" on his computer ( Sten is the person at your facility that performs all the signing of the purchase documents and offers the protection policy's). I would like to add that Jennifer and Sten did everything they could to help solve the problem and they did find a problem. I have original screenshots from Stens computer screen ....however this was not without cost. The pressure from Mike “Smiley” trying to force me to believe his math and the waste of 10 hours from start to finish - all with a bored three-year old had taken its toll and exhausted us. On October 17 the 6th day old Honda CR-V starting having computer issues. Bells and icons lighting up erratically on the dashboard console. The protection devices would start and stop on their own and we immediately drove back to your dealership. Stephanie accepted our car in for service and we were directed to give the shop a couple hours to run diagnostics.
After about 1.5 hours Stephanie informed us that she has bad news and that the our NEW car will need to have the entire dash removed to fix a known issue in every 1 in 1000 Honda CR-V's that pertains to water leaking into the vehicle and shorting out the main wiring harness and that it will take about 2 weeks to fix. I asked if we could speak to someone about exchanging for another vehicle. Stephanie put us in touch with Grant who is the Quality Assurance Manager at Brandon Honda, Florida. We explained the issues we have had with finance and now the brains of the vehicle and that we just wanted to have a "new" car that we have paid for and not a “1 in 1000 issue” vehicle that takes two weeks to rip apart (kinda kills the “newness” out of a $36,0000 vehicle). He stated he could not promise us anything and basically acted like he didn't give a cap and we were a bother. I told Grant that we would like to speak with Jennifer from earlier in this email. I stated that I believe she will support us in the swap after what we have already endured. Jennifer immediately approved the VIN swap and we were given a CR-V no bells and whistles slimmed down version to drive in the meantime while they locate us another CR-V EX-L.
Now, this really does not matter but the CR-V we bought was CR-V EX-L and the loaner was a very slimmed down version...again not complaining about that, but I am paying for a EX-L and I have been driving the loaner now for 9 days and with no end in site. Back to Grant the Quality Assurance Manager. Grant said that there are "plenty" of our CR-V's in our EX-L style and color and that he would have one for us by Thursday October 19 and to just come on innand they would do the VIN swap and we would be on our way. We mentioned to Grant at that time that we paid $600 for high quality tint on our CR-V and would like to be reimbursed since obviously the new CR-V would not have window tint ( we live in Florida, you need window tint). Grant said that the dealership would tint it for free. We then said could we just have this all done before we pickup the vehicle so we would not have to come to the dealership yet again for the appointment. Grant said it would not be a problem. Come in Thursday.
We came in Thursday and Grant was no where to be found. Reception paged him...nothing. We left to run errands and waited for Grant to call. We called Grant 3 times that day and left 2 voicemails. Never heard from him. The next day (Friday October 20) we figured Grant may have forgotten about us but he will call us today! – especially after getting all our voice mails! Nope! We called him twice on Friday (again we have a more specific timeline that we can give you which can be compared to your Call Accounting System of your PBX to verify) and no Grant. We called yet again Friday evening and had Grant paged. We were transferred to Grant and he spews that the CR-V still has not arrived and that he will call us back in 5 minutes to check on it. We never heard from him again that day and all weekend - nothing! Monday comes and again, fingers-crossed. No call. Monday comes and goes. Tuesday again nothing. We call him several times then have him paged and get transferred to Grant. No apologies from Grant. Just he doe's not know where the vehicle is and that he will call us back in 1 hour. My wife and I looked at each-other and both said "1 hour? Yay right" with a chuckle. Grant replied "Yes, I promise. A Hundred-hundred percent" whatever that means. Grant states “The vehicle should be on the delivery truck that’s coming in tonight. You can come in late tonight to pickup maybe” This is around 4p Tuesday. No not just did that our come and go but the whole day did . Never heard from Grant again that day .
Long story short, Grant never once made a effort to keep us informed on ANYTHING! We actually started finding humor in his promises. Now at the end of my rope I called Grant Wednesday afternoon as you probably guessed we STILL never received a call. Amazingly! Grant picked up and said hello in his forced cheerful voice. (I could tell he was annoyed because the receptionist asked who was calling for Grant before transferring me to him). The first thing I said to him is "What is wrong with you!" How come you NEVER call us back. Why do you make promises and then just drop us and leave us hanging!" He acted like this was all new news to him. He then had the audacity to say he's called us. I told him he's full of crap and that you have been apologetic for not getting back to us almost everytime we cornered you. His response, believe it or not was "I never apologized for how I have been handling this" I was shocked, I'm thinking are you kidding me, ego or what! I stating that I could not believe you are a “Quality Assurance Manager" and I'm going to your GM. Grant then states - "Then why didn't you just call him instead of attacking me?" Wow! I asked Grant to transfer me to his GM which he then hung up on me! Mind you, this is the Quality Assurance Manager!! LOL! I might have been loud and honest but I never used a derogatory statements or words. I immediately call back the front desk and demand to talk to the GM. I was transferred to Mr Robbie. I explained (to the best of my ability, still upset and angry from Grants un-professional "I don’t apologize", "Call my GM", Hang up on me attitude) the issues I had from start to finish.
Basically he apologized for Grant and was shocked as he has been a exceptional employee for 5-years but would have a talk with him. Mr. Robbie asked what can he do for us to get this resolved. I told Mr. Robbie that we just want to know if the new car we bought and paying for is ever going to be here so we may do the VIN swap and tinting. Mr. Robbie said he would check into this a would call me back in a hour. Mr. Robbie callex me back as promised and said the CR-V was there and getting tinted today and when would we like to pick it up tomorrow. I said my wife is at work right now (ER nurse, 12 hours shifts) and I would not know until tomorrow morning. Mr. Robbie said that’s fine to just call tomorrow. I explained that I do not want to deal with Grant and would like another direct contact. Mr. Robbie agreed and said that a Jonathan Soto would be my go to guy and that I could work with him directly from this point on and that he works a 12-9p shift tomorrow (which would be Thursday October 26). I thanked him and we hung up. Today I called at 12:30p to speak with Mr. Soto and received his voicemail. I called the front desk and the receptionist could see he was with a customer so she asked me to call back in a couple hours. I called back at approx 230p and again I got Mr. Soto's voicemail. I left a voicemail explaining the conversation I had with the GM and left my contact information. I wait...nothing. I call back at 445p and talk to reception. They could see he was with a customer.I again leave a voicemail and wait for it...nothing.
As I am writing this email at almost 9pm still nada. Another day of empty promises. We are stuck. Now my wife starts a three day stint at the hospital, 12hr shifts and for us to pick up the vehicle (well more like if we will ever be able to pick up the vehicle) she needs to be there to sign paperwork to do the VIN transfer….. we will not be able to do this for three days. Ridiculous! We have rotated and moved are schedules around our jobs and our three-years old needs multiple times now thinking basically (for 9 days now) that we would be picking up our vehicle. I am highly disappointed with this dealership. From the fiasco in finance, the "NEW" Honda breaking down..."to a tear-down fix" to repair and especially Grant and his horrible customer service, laughable really and now the newest member - Jonathan Soto. All it would of took was for someone to just check-in on us and let us know where things stood. Whether it be good or bad news, we deserved the courtesy and this dealership failed. I have since contacted Honda America. Told them my story. They will be sending a complaint supposedly directly to a District Manager. They seemed legitimately concerned. I also will be posting this experience on every Social Media platform available to me as this is a disgrace and your future customers need to be warned. If I could wash my hands of this purchase I would. If you want to know the one thing you could do to make this all go away. Take back your vehicle and cancel the entire purchase so I can go back to Toyota.
Sincerely, Mike and Danielle P.S. Too tired to run spell-check and verify punctuation, I've wasted enough time on this.
I purchased a used CR-V in near perfect condition. I paid for the car, did the paperwork, but it was late and I was on my motorcycle so they suggested I come back the next day to pick it up.
I showed up early and my salesman [Bill Kirk] looked surprised and told me they were finishing up the detailing. When it was finally ready I found the vehicle was backed into a parking space; one employee was shaking my hand, another was shoving a bag of cookies in the other, and someone else was opening my door for me.
When I got to the autoparts store to pick up a few things I noticed a fresh, not there last night, no rust in it dent. I called Brandon Honda to talk to Bill but he wasn't available. I texted him pics of the damage and asked him to call me back. For weeks I couldn't get a response. When I finally got angry I was contacted by Christine Conley and sent photos showing the damage and was told it was there when I purchased the car. I explained that I had printed the brochure photos showing no damage and she went silent again.
I finally got hold of Grant Hocking and was told I had to bring it in to Brandon Honda to have it repaired (even though they have no autobody repair shop). They will not let me get it repaired at a shop of my choice and have refused to give me the name and policy number of their liability carrier. "Captain Kirk" used our both being vets to help make the deal. Shame on you. I should have been told about the damage and you should have gone out of your way to make this right, instead Brandon Honda went out of their way to make this wrong. I won't use the free oil changes that came with the purchase of the vehicle.