I guess I forgot, or rather didnt realize, option #4: They lie to me, try to screw me over, and generally just piss me off.
SO IT STARTS...
I got a call yesterday from the Service manager. They've had the car two days, listening to it and what not. Well he says there is a noise there, but its not loud. Now from what the Customer Service people told him, he thought I was going to have to have it towed in, apparently they led him to believe it was spun and undrivable.
He goes on to tell me, yes you can definitely hear a knocking when you drive allong side a building, and from inside the car if you listen. He asks me if it ever changes pitch and what not. I tell him no, and that you cant hear it on the highway, mainly due to the road noise. He reccomends (for some reason I still dont understand) having the valves adjusted for $170, and says that might be some of the noise. He seems rather iffy about this, and later in the conversation admits that he doesnt think thats it, so why is he reccomending it? He is incredibly helpful, when I tell him I'll probably just do it myself, he tells me all about the diffrent size bearings and spends 5 minutes reading through the service manual for tips. What we end in is that officially im just going to wait and see if it gets worse, all in all im very satisfied and understand.
It also came up that I told him I really didnt expect anything from the attitude that the customer service rep took with me, and I told him how she grilled me about it all. He tells me that is definitely not the impression he got from them, and that its normal that they ask those questions, but he felt they were very open to helping me. I explicitally asked him, in his honest opinion, if he thought the valves needed adjusted, and he told me no
So today I get a call from the customer service rep.
She starts telling me how the Service Manager contacted her, and according to her he said that the noise is extremely quiet, and you can only hear it when driving next to a building, or when you have the hood open and are listening in the engine bay for it. He supposedly said that its not noticalbe from inside the car or at highway speeds. She said he reccomended adjusting the valves and that I had declined the service. She also said they had "screened" the oil and found nothing.
I objected, telling her that is absolutely not what we talked about, and summarized what we talked about, she snapped back that this is what he told her and what not. She asked what I planned to do, and I replied "Well I guess im going to drive it until the engine explodes since nothing is wrong." and told her that I had another shop and an independant mechanic confirm this was the problem.
I told her I would probably take it to another dealership "blindly" and just tell them "hey, I've got this noise, can you tell me what it is?" She snapped back about how it would have to be a Honda dealership, I told her I know, and I would probably take it to one in Columbus. So then she starts grilling me about what dealership I'm taking it to, so she can call them to check with them. I told her I wasnt sure, and the whole point of a blind diagnosis was to get an uninfluenced second opinion. She still insisted I tell her where I was taking it, I just told her I wasnt sure, there were a lot of dealerships down there.
So given that shes a total b**** and someone here is lying to me, im inclined to believe its her. I can also about guarentee that the only reason im being told it needs a valve adjustment is someone told him "well try to charge him as much as you can before you give a diagnosis, see if he will just go away"
I said going into this, I dont care if they just tell me "hey it outta warranty, you're out of luck" thats their perogative, but to treat me like this, talk to me like they have been, lie to me, and in general just treat me like crap, thats unacceptable. I can honestly say im probably never buying another Honda, realizing how poor their warraties actually are, I mean 3\36? Thats on par with the worst warranties in the industry, even the service manager agreed the warranties arent very good on most Hondas.