Crown Honda - Service Center

Two years ago I had my transmission replaced by Crown Honda in Pinellas Park Fl. just over 1 month ago my car started slipping in first gear and reverse here and there. I went to check my my radiator flu Honda in Pinellas Park Fl. just over 1 month ago my car started slipping in first gear and reverse here and there. I went to check my my radiator fluid level (standard maintenance) and noticed that my radiator had coffee color fluid in it. I spoke to my brother-in-law about that (which is a mechanic) he said it looked like transmission fluid got mixed in. We checked all around on the car to find out where the transmission fluid could have gotten into the radiator which anyone that knows anything about the mechanics of cars knows that would have been caused by a bad transmission cooler. Well my 2003 honda accord has no such thing well at least it is not like most and according to honda it is not called a cooler but instead a warmer (its for cold climates to get your transmission fluid warmed up to operating temp quicker). I understand someone like myself or the majority of the public to never have heard of a transmission warmer before but for a honda dealer to not know that is just rediculous. So after knowing that ok I do have ATF in my radiator and my car is slipping I called Crown Honda up to check if my Transmission was still under warrantee. I was told that my warrantee was only for 12 months. Well needless to say I was severely bummed out. I ended up taking my car to AAMCO just north Country Side mall. They replaced the stock Honda Warmer for an aftermarket Cooler which had its own radiator for it so therefor there will never be a chance for water to get back into my transmission. They also flushed my radiator out and my transmission. AAMCO did tell me that due to the water being in my transmission that chances are the damage was already done. About two days after getting my car back from AAMCO my car started slipping again. Extremely depressed and thinking of how much money it was going to cost me again to replace my transmission for a second time in two years, I decided what the hell I will just call Crown back and doublecheck with them about the warrantee. I got a different individual this time and they told me that I have a 3 year 36,000 mile warrantee he also informed me of what the miliage on my car was at the time of my transmission being replaced was. I hurried to my car checked my odometer and noticed I had about 80 miles left of that 36,000 miles. I scheduled in a time to bring my car to them. Ok enough of the back story. (sorry for the length) My service advisor was Jason Cavanaugh. Jason although sounds like a very nice guy (the type that could carry on a conversation about anything in the world) He quickly got on my nerves not due to his friendliness but simply due to the poor information he tried to provide me. After the techs looked at my car Jason told me that I had transmission fluid in my radiator. I told him that yes (see the back story above) even though it has been flushed a few times already I still have transmission fluid in my radiator and that I am aware of that and that I will take care of that issue myself but that I need the transmission fixed since it is under warrantee. Which by the way I told him all of this before I even brought the car in and told him this when I dropped the car off so it was no new information for me. He then went on to tell me that by having transmission fluid in my radiator that its a sign that I may have a bad head gasket. My face went pale with the thought that this service advisor was actually trying to tell me that transmission fluid in my radiator had any sort of relationship with my head gasket. (for those that don't know it does not) I told him that there is no relationship between the two and at that point he started to back pedal. He then went onto to telling me that they would not honor the warrantee because I now have an actual aftermarket transmission cooler installed. After educating him on how water gets into your transmission he went back to his bosses and came back to me stating that I would have to bring in the old transmission warmer so they could inspect that. Luckily for me I happened to have that part still. I brought that in to them and after a day they said that they would honor the warrantee but all they were going to do was to replace my perfectly good brand new transmission cooler with another poorly designed Transmission warmer and flush my radiator and transmission. Now I knew this was not going to work but at this point I had to play their game so I let them do the work. They kept my car over the weekend and into the next week waiting for the transmission warmer to be shipped to them. I finally got my car back in just under a week. When I went to pick my car up I knew I was going to have to pay for two hoses (which I still don’t think I should have had to pay for but figured it would only be about $12 for both of them since I had already priced them at another Honda dealership.) Jason Cavanaugh showed me a receipt with all of these charges on them totaling $89. I blew up at that point and demanded an explanation. He told me that I had a charge for 4 clips at $12 each. When I asked what clips and why did I need any clips. He told me it was the clips that hold the hoses apart. At that point they were just pulling my car around I walked out and told the guy getting out of my car to stop and pop the hood. I then had the guy follow me to the front of the car and show me what clips they were talking about. As soon as I opened the hood there was a clip that is used to hold the hoses apart (which I already had on my hoses anyhow) was laying on top of my transmission not connected to anything at all. I went back inside and before I could say anything Jason Cavanaugh looked in his trash can and pulled out another receipt and told me “I am sorry I grabbed the wrong receipt this is the correct one.” A sigh of relief came over me until he showed me the receipt. Instead of $89 it was $60 something. At that point he then tried telling me that I spoke with another service advisor over the phone prior to the work being done and I was told all of the parts that needed to be added to the car and that I had agreed to pay the costs. He called Donald Scullion over which said yes we talked about this. I quickly informed him that no one had to that point mentioned a monetary value of any sort to me and that only thing we talked about was that Crown was going to honor the warrantee and in addition to that seeing as how they were only going to put a warmer back on and flush the transmission that they would continue to honor the warrantee after the 36,000 miles if the transmission slipped again which is when Donald Scullion told me that I don’t have a mileage stipulation on my warrantee it is simply just a 3 year warrantee. Now, I only knew of what the two hose that I agreed to purchase were going to cost because of pricing them with another dealership beforehand. I turned around and saw that there was an Office behind me with a big window and someone that looked like they may be important behind that window. I asked if that was the manager and they told me yes. I went into the manager’s office and Donald Scullion followed instructing him who I was. The managers name is John p. Schnepp. After John Schnepp heard who I was and what was going on he quickly agreed that I was to only pay for the two hoses. John apologized to me and we all walked out of the office just for John to pull me back into the office asking me to come back in while they correct the paper work. When I got back into his office John gave me his business card and said to me that if I have any more problems to call him directly. In addition to that he told me I may be getting a survey on the service that I received and to “do the right thing” and give them all 10’s on the survey. Coming from a customer service field myself I was absolutely disgusted with him even suggesting that I do so and more over to suggest that it would be the right thing to do. It took so much for me to hold back giving him a piece of my mind but I did I figured I had to go to work and I was already worked up enough and being in a customer service field where I have to deal with escalated issues all day long I was not going to get myself into that mindset before going to work and provide terrible service to my customers just because of this. I took the car straight to work when I picked it up then drove it home and then back to work the next day. Right in front of my work at a stop light my car did it again with slipping. I called john up as he instructed me to do and told him what happened, he told me to bring the car back in and they would replace my transmission and they would give me a “Loaner car”. So I brought my car back in again to have them replace the transmission which that was on Friday June 8 2012. When I brought the car back in I stood in the lobby waiting for John Schnepp to get off a phone call because he told me to deal with him. After about 15 minutes a service advisor named Vince came over to me and told me that John asked him to deal with me. He brought me over to his desk and got me all signed in and told me that Enterprise rental car would be by to pick me up. I asked Vince specifically “What do I need to do in regards to this rental car I never got a rental car before” Vince told me not to worry about anything that they have it all handled. Now I don’t know about you but I always thought that when a dealership tells you that they are giving you a loaner it was going to be a car that they have at their shop that they loan out to customers and not a rental car. Well seeing as how Vince told me that they have everything handled, I, for some reason actually believed him even after all of the previous issues. Well sure enough enterprise rental car came and picked me up which that guy was very nice and polite along with good conversation. He dropped me off at the front door of Enterprise rentals and said to just go inside and tell the lady at the front desk my name and that I was just picked up from Crown Honda. I did just as the driver suggested, the nice lady at the front desk looked in the computer for my name and then asked “Might you be Scott Osborn?”; “Not unless Ozzy wants to adopt me” I replied jokingly. She looked again for my name and then gave me a cell phone number which was one number off of being my cell phone number and asked if that was my number. I told her it was almost my number but not it. She decided it was best to call Crown and after a couple of minutes with talking with Crown they got the issue resolved Vince messed up my reservation with Enterprise by giving them a wrong last name and wrong cell number. Ok so that issue is over with I thought to myself me and the people at Enterprise had a nice laugh at it, then the lady behind the counter said that all she needs from me is my ID card and a credit card to charge a $50 deposit on which is refundable. I told her that I do not have a credit card and my debit card I don’t have the money in the back for them to hold on to. I quickly started calling my parents to get their card info over the phone but was told that they cannot take one over the phone. So now I am stranded at Enterprise rental cars I call up Crown and asked for John Schnepp they said he was on a call. I told them to get him off the call and get him on this call that I was stranded due to their incompetence. John never did get on the phone instead someone else did which I forget her name. She asked me to give the phone to the Enterprise employee which I did and finally they said they were going to waive the deposit fee for me. Don’t think for a minute that I have any hard feelings with Enterprise rentals this by no means was their issue or their fault. In fact they told me they just went to Crown Honda the day before to give instruction on how to communicate to the customer because this apparently happens a lot where customers think they are getting a loaner from Crown, themselves not a rental car and have no idea about the deposit required. So I got a call on Tuesday June 12, 2012 from Vince which he told me they finally got the approval from Honda to replace the transmission and that was ordered today and will be in on that Thursday June 14 2012 additionally that the new transmission will be installed and ready to go by June 14, 2012 and on worst case scenario it would be done by Friday June 15, 2012. Thursday came and no car. Given I already knew he was full of it when he suggested Thursday I knew they would not get the transmission in early and get right to working on the new one. So Friday came and at 9:45am I called and asked what is going on with the car they told me that they would have Jason Cavanaugh call me back in 30 minutes with an update. At 11:45 I called them back again and spoke to Jason Cavanaugh which told me that they got a late start to the day and that it will be Saturday before they can have my car done. Well today is Saturday and I call Jason Cavanaugh back again today and he tells me that they still don’t have my car done and that it will not be done this weekend and just to keep the rental through the weekend. Now I have thought about this and I really wanted to just send this letter to a corporate office somewhere where this could be handled in a more professional quiet manner. The problem with that is trying to find true contact above John Schnepp on the internet for Crown Automotive Group. So seeing as how Crown Automotive Group does not want to readily provide corporate level contacts online and easily available to their customer base then I might as well post this online for the entire world to see my only fear now is they still have my car and I have no idea when it is going to come back or what kind of condition it is going to come back in. More

I am very pleased with the honesty of the service writer. He made suggestions as to going a head with a sixty thound mile servive instead of the regular oil change to address some issues that we could take c He made suggestions as to going a head with a sixty thound mile servive instead of the regular oil change to address some issues that we could take care of now, instead of later when they would have caused some advanced problems.H More

I took my car in with an appointment and told them when I arrived that I would need a ride to work and when done (5:30 ish) a ride to pick up my car. The driver decided he would take people home before taki arrived that I would need a ride to work and when done (5:30 ish) a ride to pick up my car. The driver decided he would take people home before taking me to work - I was late and am an hourly employee. When I was called at 2:30 that my car was done I reminded them that I needed a pick up and they told me they would be there between 5 and 5:30. So I had to clock out early to make sure I was ready to be picked up. At 5:40 I called the dealership and they said there was a mix up and after the driver dropped off people at the dealership they would be back for me - in about 30 minutes. Since almost all the people at work were gone I decided to get a ride with a fellow employee, even though they were supposed to go in the other direction. I was given an estimate when the problems for my visit were discovered of $966.86 however when I finally when to pay my bill they said they gave me a $100.00 discount for my problems which knocked my bill to $950.72. I don't see how that adds up, unless my original estimate was grossly understated. Service people did pay lip service and said how sorry they were but I felt that is all it was - lip service. More

I have known Michele and have been bringing my car to her for 21 years now and she is a tremendous employee who focuses the customer, creating relationships, and delivering outstanding service. She is a tre for 21 years now and she is a tremendous employee who focuses the customer, creating relationships, and delivering outstanding service. She is a tremendous brand ambassador for Crown Honda and the primary reason I always come back. I am certainly loyal to Honda vehicles, but more importantly, I am loyal to them and Crown because of Michele. She creates that kind of value and relationship with her customers. I have been a loyal Crown Honda customer since 1990 when I purchased my Civic. It was at that time I met Michele and over the next 20 years continued to bring my car back to Michele and the Crown team. After over 200,000 miles I finally retired the Civic and went with an Accord, but I have no doubt that I would not have had the driving confidence and driving pleasure if not for Michele and the team at Crown. I sincerely thank Michele for all that she does to make every visit a positive one. Charles More

I have been bringing my 2004 Element to Crown since 2006. Michele Dessert, Service Consultant has gone above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that my needs are met. She provides supurb customer service, Michele Dessert, Service Consultant has gone above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that my needs are met. She provides supurb customer service, anticipates problems and always... always demontrates integrity to me the "Customer" . This kind of employee always brings the customer back and she should be commended for this Michele, thank you for what you do. Brenda Matthews, Nurse Manager Bay Pines VA Healthcare System 716-949-7506 More