Keating Honda

This is in regards to insurance repairs done on my 2002 Honda Accord. Background: To be brief, a thief broke into my car and tore apart my steering column and trim to try to hot-wire my Accord. The Honda Accord. Background: To be brief, a thief broke into my car and tore apart my steering column and trim to try to hot-wire my Accord. The damage was mostly cosmetic with the exception that it began to have periodic issues starting. The Problem: Streater-Smith Honda Service was recommended to me even though it was over 20 miles from my home. I began working with Service Advisor Dee Dee Johnson. I left my Accord with them for a few days. They were not able to replicate the starting issue and proceeded to replace all the trim pieces and the ignition switch. I provided these parts because I had already purchased them shortly after the incident. Dee Dee walked me out to my car in the parking lot and everything looked fine at a glance because all the trim was put back together. Upon returning home, I decided to inspect their work a little more detailed. Without removing anything, I was able to reach my fingers up though the steering column adjustment lever and feel something was wrong. Instead of replacing the plastic cover which protects the ignition wire contact points, they put a piece of foam tape over it and call it “good”. When I called Streater-Smith Honda about this finding, I was told “the cover wasn’t mentioned on the insurance adjuster’s estimate, so it wasn’t replaced”. First of all, if a shop finds addition issues with an insurance repair or any other repair, isn’t it normal to say something and recommend the job be done correctly instead of applying a band-aid and saying it is done? I would hope so. Streater-Smith Honda did not. They passed it off as fixed. I took the car back into them to fix what they had not done correctly the first time. I again left it with them for a few days while I traveled for work. In order to replace the small cover, I was told they had to replace the ignition and all the locks to match the new ignition. Everything would be rekeyed and I would be provided with a new set of keys at pickup. I was contacted when ready. I picked up the car, but was not escorted by any company representative to inspect the rework and left assuming everything was fine. Within a week the intermittent starting problem happened again. I immediately called to let Dee Dee know that the starting issue was still there and I would need to arrange to bring it back, but that I was very busy with work and travel that since it was only intermittent and hasn’t left me stranded, I would wait until my schedule freed up or the problem got so bad I couldn’t drive it, whichever came first. Just over a month later, my schedule began to slow a little where I could plan some time to take it in. About that time, it began acting up again and not starting on the first try. I became suspicious of the workmanship of Streater-Smith Honda and decided to make sure they put everything back together again correctly. I carefully lowered the bottom column cover and found the alignment posts bent and mutilated. In addition, after only removing the three screws which attach the cover to the column, I went to remove the wire harness grommet from the cover and found it wasn’t attached like it was designed to be. In fact, the grommet on the wire harness was pointing up instead of down, so it could not have been reattached to the column cover as designed. I then noticed that the point the wire harness attaches to the bottom column was broken. Since this cover was new and installed the first time it could have only been broken the second time when they took every apart to replace the plastic ignition cover. The technician apparently wasn’t careful removing the bottom column cover and broke the grommet attach point try to remove the cover to work on the ignition. The cover is designed to be difficult to remove/replace and the ignition switch & wire harness would have to have been adjusted to install the cover correctly. This must explain why the harness attachment grommet was turned in the wrong direction and not attached properly. Based on my findings, I was no longer comfortable taking my car back to Streater-Smith Honda (my right as the insured). I was instructed by my insurance adjuster, that to get the cover replaced, I would have to work it out directly with Streater-Smith since it was a “customer service” issue. I proceeded to contact them and spoken with both Dee Johnson (Service Advisor) and Mark Miller (Service & Parts Director). I was told they would not replace the bottom column cover ($20) their technician broke because 1) I had removed the cover (how else would I have found out they broke it) and 2) I took it to another dealer to finish trying to fix my Accord. Conclusion: You are better off taking your $25,000-35,000 investment to another Honda dealer with technicians that are careful and treat your car as they should. More

I purchased a used 2004 Nissan from a Streater Smith on 10/29/07. When I purchased the vehicle the Streater Smith’s Buyers Guide Information Sheet for the vehicle stated a "balance of factory warranty stil 10/29/07. When I purchased the vehicle the Streater Smith’s Buyers Guide Information Sheet for the vehicle stated a "balance of factory warranty still applied” and a "service contract was available at an extra charge". I purchased the Nissan Gold Security Plus Vehicle Protection Plan (72 months/100,000 miles - with $50.00 deductible) from the Streater Smith at the time of purchase. This month (10/1/09) my vehicle had a major repair (Complete Transmission Replacement at 56,000 miles) and we were informed by Clear Lake Nissan that our warranty was not valid. We contacted Streater Smith and they informed me that shortly after we purchased the vehicle Nissan declined the warranty and the Streater Smith sent a refund check to our financial institution for the purchase amount of the warranty. We were never contacted by Streator Smith (mail or phone) informing us that the warranty was declined, they simply sent a refund check to the financial institution and that was all. I purchased a vehicle and a warranty in good faith from Streater Smith and was never informed at the time of purchase that the warranty could be revoked or declined at any time...if that was the case I would have never purchased the vehicle. The Dealers Buyers Guide on the vehicle when I purchased the vehicle clearly stated that a "Service Contract" was available for this vehicle (I don't uderstand how this could be declined if it is advertised as available at the time of sale). The "Nissan Gold Security Plus Vehicle Protection Plan" that I purchased from Streater Smith clearly states "I agree that my Service Agreement is effective NOW". My experience with Streater Smith has not been good, we called Streater Smith many times and left many messages to contact us...they never return our calls and when we did get through we basically got a tough luck response. My vehicle was repaired at Clear Lake Nissan near Galveston. They also could not understand why this had happened. The Service Manager went out of his way to help me in this bad situation. He got Nissan to install a reconditioned transmission in my car and cover half of the cost. It still cost me $1,800.00 dollars, but at least they helped when I could not get any help from Streater Smith. More