I took a used 2003 Honda Accord that I was interested in purchasing from a private party to a Honda Certified Service Center for a presale inspection. On the way there I noticed the air conditioning did not blow cold even in the slightest. So when I spoke with the service advisor I specifically asked them to look into the problem.
After an hour and a half (I was told it would take 30 minutes) they returned the car to me with a laundry list of small items that needed to be fixed. The largest and most critical were front brakes and the air conditioning needed to be recharged with freon.
I prodded a little deeper on the A/C issue and specifically asked if there was any damage beyond needing a recharge. The advisor responded that there might be a leak requiring a seal to be replaced (which could only be ascertained by providing their recharge service) but beyond that there was no damage.
Great! I bought the car. I took it to them the next day to have the front brakes replaced and to charge the air conditioning.
Then I get a call. The air conditioning unit is not getting power. They are going to have to explore the problem. After a full day and a half they still cant find the problem and recommend I take it to the dealer. But they still charged me $110 for the air condition service, even though it still doesn't work.
The dealer tells me the car has electrical issues that will cost $1,000+ to repair and the air conditioning needs major repair ($1,600). They have no idea how SanTan Import Service Center could overlook something as easy to diagnose as the A/C not getting power. And although that alone would not have indicated the extent to which there were problems it would have certainly raised a giant red flag that more analysis needed to be done to accurately judge whether major repairs were needed.
A call to their GM results in a "oops, sorry we didnt find those problems" but nothing else. Do I have any legitimate grounds for a small claims case against the service center or is it just my bad luck? I feel like I did everything I was suppose to do and still got shafted.
Thanks in advance for any thoughts or comments.
After an hour and a half (I was told it would take 30 minutes) they returned the car to me with a laundry list of small items that needed to be fixed. The largest and most critical were front brakes and the air conditioning needed to be recharged with freon.
I prodded a little deeper on the A/C issue and specifically asked if there was any damage beyond needing a recharge. The advisor responded that there might be a leak requiring a seal to be replaced (which could only be ascertained by providing their recharge service) but beyond that there was no damage.
Great! I bought the car. I took it to them the next day to have the front brakes replaced and to charge the air conditioning.
Then I get a call. The air conditioning unit is not getting power. They are going to have to explore the problem. After a full day and a half they still cant find the problem and recommend I take it to the dealer. But they still charged me $110 for the air condition service, even though it still doesn't work.
The dealer tells me the car has electrical issues that will cost $1,000+ to repair and the air conditioning needs major repair ($1,600). They have no idea how SanTan Import Service Center could overlook something as easy to diagnose as the A/C not getting power. And although that alone would not have indicated the extent to which there were problems it would have certainly raised a giant red flag that more analysis needed to be done to accurately judge whether major repairs were needed.
A call to their GM results in a "oops, sorry we didnt find those problems" but nothing else. Do I have any legitimate grounds for a small claims case against the service center or is it just my bad luck? I feel like I did everything I was suppose to do and still got shafted.
Thanks in advance for any thoughts or comments.
