Long-time readers of my blog may remember my multiple postings about Honda Village in Newton, Massachusetts. You can read the whole series of Honda Village postings here.
In a nutshell, Honda Village lied to us when we bought our car, lied to us after the fact, ignored our complaints, sent us (and others) intentionally misleading junk mail and refused to stop when asked, sent us lots of spam and refused to stop when asked, and did mediocre auto-body work for us which took multiple attempts to get right (this last point was Village Collision, another business within the Village Automotive Group umbrella of which Honda Village is a part).
Nevertheless, Honda Village is where we bought our Honda Odyssey minivan, and they are the closest Honda dealership to our house, so when we need service done that is warranty- or recall-related and/or inexpensive and hard enough for them to screw up, we take our van there. Or so I thought.
A number of months ago, I brought our van to Honda Village for some simple service or recall or something; I forget the details. After looking up our van in the computer, the associate informed me that I had to speak to the service department manager about something. I went into the manager’s office, where he informed me that Honda Village would not service my vehicle.
Honda Village has never apologized for any of the things I complained to them about. They have never acknowledged doing anything wrong, unless you consider it an “apology” when they paid me the refund I demanded for the warranty which they convinced me to purchase by outright lying to me about its coverage (fraud!).
Their response to my legitimate complaints was not to acknowledge them and try to improve. No, their response has been to continue on with business as usual and refuse to serve me.
Judge for yourself whether this is a business which deserves your patronage.
P.S. I just realized that I never got around to posting what happened after my last letter to Honda Village’s lawyer. So, for those who are curious… Their lawyer sent back a response asserting that the precedents on which I was relying were out-of-date, and citing a newer precedent which he claimed precluded my filing a Chapter 93a claim against Honda Village. After reviewing that newer precedent, I thought he was probably right, and in any case didn’t have any more time to waste on it, so I dropped it.
I can tell you as a past employee of VAG that this is simply how they run all the dealerships. It starts at the top with Ray Ciccolo the owner. He loves to cry a river to the media about what a hard life he has had. He has it great now with all his dealerships but has forgotten the little people that gave him all the money. Now at all the dealerships it is to hell with the customers and employees.. Just get me the money.
As a prior employee I would never buy a car from them nor would I send someone there. I know how they run all the dealerships and they are not trustworthy at all.