I bought my 2007 Honda Civic from Kelly Honda of Lynn, MA. I’ve written before that dealing with them was a great experience.
Today, I had to take my new Civic back to the dealership for service. This was the first time I’ve been back to the dealership since I bought the car. My experience was pretty good. They have a door that you drive up to for service reception. That’s right, I don’t have walk in and hand someone my keys. I drive my car right into the reception bay. The guy took my name and gave me a number to take to the service advisor. That’s when I met Chris, the service advisor I dealt with. Chris is a very hot man. Anyway, I explained that my car had a little bit of a shake when I hit 70 MPH and it sounded like I had a tire that was unbalanced. I thought it was the right front tired but not entirely sure. He told me to have a seat in the waiting room and he’d let me know when they had some information.
I sat in the waiting room that has a nice TV and a Keurig coffee maker with a nice selection of coffee K-cups. It was a nice way to kill some unproductive time. I had my laptop and wireless EVDO card so I was able to do some work.
Chris came back and said they balanced the two front tires and the balancing machine showed the tires were fine. He asked me to explain the problem in a little more detail and I explained what I was expereincing. He did tell me that the machine only rates tires at 65 MPH and that could explain it, but he wasn’t convinced. He said he’d talk to the mechanic and see what else they could do.
A little later, Chris came back and said my car was ready. He said that they pulled the two rear tires and balanced those. The right rear tire was out of balance. At least I’m not crazy. The cost of today’s repairs, zilch. That’s such a good feeling. I’ve never had my car repaired without it costing a small fortune.
Kelly Honda says they make it easy. Really, they do.
While I was there, I asked what it would cost me to have XM installed. I’d like to be able to control it on the dash without having an extra component mounted in my car. It’s kind of a religious thing. XM and Sirius have similar programming. The question is whether you prefer Martha or Oprah. Eh. I’ve been with Sirius for two years and love it. My only reason for changing would be to eliminate the additional hardware in the car. Honda only offers XM. If I were going to have XM installed, I should have done it when I bought the car because doing it after market, it’s close to $900. I’ll keep my Sirius receiver for now.