Team-BHP - Honda Civic : Maintenance, Service Costs and Must dos

Hi,

Quote:

Originally Posted by holysmoke (Post 1736916)

Normal brake pad life is around 35-40k, and an auto uses much much more brakes than a manual.

Then is something wrong with my City CVT's brakes. The OEM pads are going strong at 46000+kms.

Of course, my Marina's pads are still OEM at 66000+kms.

I do agree that the 40K service is important. I paid 10509.00, but 3750.00 was for wheel bearing which need not be a standard item at that point. And this was with a forced change to synthetic oil.

And I too am looking forward to your bill details.

I think the bill seems to be on the higher side. What did the service centre guys do in Paid service, if spark plugs cleaning required an extra charge of Rs.350 . Also i see that wheel alignment and balancing costed around Rs 1000, which also is on the higher side.To me its seems that paid service cost of Rs 1970 was just for exterior cleaning as you have paid for almost everything you got done.Even Rs 2000 for interior cleaning seems a ripoff to me.:Shockked:

A lot of these things seem bogus.

1) Spark plug and injector cleaning.
2) Wheel alignment and balancing. They seem to have used a lot of new weights. Never get this done from the service center. Always at a competent outside shop. Of course, I get it done from the service center because I really don't have much choice.

3) Rs. 4000 FOR ENGINE OIL?!? I pay 2200+ tax for Honda approved synth.

4) Throttle body clean for engine vibration?

Quote:

Originally Posted by ImmortalZ (Post 1739783)

Huge rip off, I should say. I am glad that I didn't get to see this bill before I bought my Civic. Had I seen this, I'd have ran away at the sight of a Civic. My 40K service cost me just around 8K.

Holysomke, I think you should send this bill to Honda and ask to explain.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cyborg (Post 1738883)

I want to upgrade my lights to Xenons and have recieved a quote from Honda of 14K with a intensity of 6000k for the lower and upper beam. So a total of 28K for both. These are the plug type connectors with a 1 year warranty. There would be no cutting of wires, so my vehicle warranty would also be valid. Is this quote OK?
With both beams changed to Xenons the fog lamps with yellow lights would look silly IMO, are there some bulbs available which would throw a white light to maintain uniformity which could fit in my Civic?
Please advice.
Thanks

Guys, can someone please reply to my query.
Thanks.

My battery, OEM SF left me stranded in the 'middle-of-nowhere' on the 4-lane (30 kms from Tirunelveli towards Kanyakumari, between Nanguneri and Valiyoor)
:Shockked:. (I will upload a photo on my next post).
I had stopped for a loo-break and it would not restart.
Luckily I had parked in the only shade within many kms, with temperatures around 36 deg C at 11 am (summer has started!).

It was 2.75 years old and my odo was at 57K. Luckily my mobile signal was good so that I could make emergency calls. Also I had recently bought a Nokia 5230 with GPS, so google-maps helped locate my exact position.

I was recently warned by a battery-tester that one cell was bad and was advised to change it as quickly as possible. So the fault was mine.

Since mine is as AT, push-start was not an option and I needed a jump-start.
I was thinking of buying cables and to learn to DYI to jump-start, in the recent past.
If I had done that I could have solved the problem myself by stopping some vehicle for help.

Called my friendly Honda-guys at Madurai TVS and they advised me to call 'MyTVS Emergency Services'. Mechanics arrived 1.75 hours later with a battery and jump-started. I paid Rs.500/- and it was worth it except for the delay (Since I was with a friend it helped pass the time).

Drove straight to Amaron dealer at Tirunelveli and bought a new one.
Normally I would have researched extensively on the net before buying. But this was an emergency. Anyway Amaron has a good reputation on TeamBHP!

The model is 'Amaron Pro - 55B24LS'. Is this the exact Civic replacement? The rate was Rs.4,950/- minus Rs.400/- for the dead one.

I have now done 600 kms in 5 days with it and am satisfied so far.
Hope I get more years with Amaron, they say anyway 'Lasts Long, Really Long' :D.

(Any threads on MyTVS Emergency Services or any other on TeamBHP?)

Ya that OEM SF is a joke of a battery. Mine also lasted about 2.5-2.75 years. But the A.S.S. caught it as weak during routine servicing and quoted a reasonable price for Exide MF replacement, so I just told them to go ahead.

Actually my experience of car batteries has been that the OEMs last about 2.5-3.5 years, anything above that consider it as a bonus. If you buy a good brand thereafter, lasts anywhere from 3.5-4.5 years. But they all can conk without warning (just like light bulbs/HDDs)

Quote:

Originally Posted by ImmortalZ (Post 1760850)

So who else got the JD Power call? Honda has appointed them to find out what the hell is wrong with their dealerships. I've told them all about Peninsular. And the guy was taking notes as well. I didn't expect that. When he finished the 25min call, he reiterated all the issues I told him from the beginning, so I'm confident something might happen on this front.

I don't think it's just the dealers, some changes are required to the thought process at HMIL itself.

What are the key pain areas that we have? May be useful to list them out and consolidate. Some of them that I can think of are,

1. No customer connect. Dealers seems to work in an "offline" mode
2. Showroom appearance pretty ordinary in comparison to Hyundai or others
3. Very poor collection of accessories, most of them old models
4. Poor hospitality, even if customer makes a booking
5. Salesmen look disinterested, by default assumes that visitors are window shopping
6. "Take it or leave it" attitude in the showroom. No followup for TDs or visits
8. Sales staff needs better understanding of products and competition
9. Showrooms are the windows for Honda to its prospective and existing customers. Honda should be more transparent in explaining new features and Honda should listen to customer complaints through them
10. Honda should shed the attitude that their products are supreme and can never have mfg faults. They should accept their mistakes and ready to make necessary adjustments

Any more?