Acura of Manhattan

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ***, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me and the matter has been resolved
I have FINALLY received my car registration and license
plates yesterday, March **, 2014, nearly months after I began my lease. Although I am happy this issue has finally been resloved, I am still completely unstaisfied with how long this took!
Sincerely,
*** ***

Review: On October [redacted] I purchased a 2011 Acura MDX from Acura of Manhattan and noticed it had some minor damage on the rear passenger side panel. I was told to bring it in and it would be fixed at no charge. I brought the car into the service department on October [redacted], my service advisor was named [redacted] and his customer service was quite poor to say the least! I was greeted without a hello or good morning , but just told to head to to the cashier and pick up my loaner car. I was not given any kind of paper work indicating that I was even there, nor what would be done to my car! One, Two weeks had passed and I still had not receive one phone call from ACURA, nor my Service Advisor. I had tried repeatedly to contact my service advisor and finally, I was told he no longer works for Acura and [redacted] would be my new contact person. After several days of failing to respond to my phone calls and written request, I decided to contact my Sales person to see if he could get me some information as to the status of my car. He was able to inform me that the car had not been sent out to the body shop yet and that it would take a little longer. Talk about “FUMMING” mad, now this is week number three without my new car! Long story short I went to pick up the car on Tuesday the [redacted] of October and the car was improperly repaired with additional body damage, not to mention the body shop painted the wrong side of the car. So, I would have to call this an the experience from [redacted]!

Thanks,

Review: Sometime last spring our MDX got scraped in a Manhattan parking garage and rusted on the fender above the right rear wheel. It also received a ding on the drivers door above the door handle. I took it to Acura of Manhattan to have both fixed. [redacted], the sales manager told me to get the damage appraised by our insurance carrier - Geico, who has an inspection center across the street – and then return with their appraisal. The dealer would then do the repair. It took me a while to fit this into my work and childcare schedule, and it wasn’t until July that I had the appraisal. I was directed to interact with [redacted], a service manager. I gave her two estimates from Geico – one for the scraped and rusted fender and one for the ding on the door. She told me it could take up to a week to be fixed and she’d be in touch. After a couple of days I called she said the man who does bodywork is sick, and it she didn’t know when he’d be in, but hoped it would be soon. It ended up taking almost two weeks – from a Monday morning til Friday afternoon of the following week. In the interim, [redacted] sent an email update or two, but didn’t respond quickly to my responses to her emails. She did respond to phone calls.

When I took receipt of the car I came with my wife and two children as we planned to take the car on a trip that afternoon. It was during a stretch of 90+ temps, so they waited on the sales floor, which is in a separate building, while I went to pick up the car. For some reason, it took about 25 minutes for them to retrieve the car from somewhere else in the building, using an elevator. When I got the car, I noticed immediately that the rusted fender was fixed, but they hadn’t touched the ding on the driver’s door. I notified [redacted], who noted that their own service documents listed the ding as the first item to be fixed. She apologized and said they could fix it another time.

It was not 40+ minutes since I’d gotten there and I was anxious to pick up my wife and toddler children from the sales department. When I got in the car and drove around the block to get them, I noticed that the interior of the car – especially on the passenger’s side – had bondo (used for bodywork) splattered or smeared on the seats and door panels in various spots. This was upsetting. As I was now at the bldg. with the sales dept, I went inside, told my wife, and asked to speak to a manager. [redacted], the sale mgr, who told me he had just arrived, came to inspect the issues. He was very helpful. He offered to have the car cleaned and detailed. He also noted that the ding on the door needn’t have been repaired in the first place – it would be forgiven under the terms of the lease – and asked if anyone in service had told me that. I said no. They said they’d fix it, but didn’t. At this point, it was getting late and we had to leave. I used paper towels we have in the trunk to clean off the seats and we left.

As we drove away, my wife and I noticed that the air coming our of the dash vents smelled musty, as if mold/mildew had gotten a chance to grow inside the car. We didn’t have time to go back and report this and hoped it might simply reflect ‘bad air’ the was left in the A/C system from being parked in the service garage, and as such, would simply dissipate. Over the next day, however, we realized that mildew must have formed in the A/C system while the dealer had the car because the smell wouldn’t go away, and was strongest upon starting the car. We could only assume that for some reason when the car was being serviced that the A/C had gotten turned way up (in fact, when I got the car back from the dealer, they the A/C was on its lowest possible temp) and then left to sit in during two of the hottest weeks of the year in some garage, allowing mildew to grow. Unfortunately, my 2.5 yr old son and I both have mold/mildew allergies and driving in the car made both of us feel sick.

We called [redacted], the service mgr the next day to tell her both about the musty/mildewy smell and to ask why they didn’t fix the ding on the driver’s door. After a msg or two, we got her on the phone a day or so later. She told me that the smell was normal. All cars have this in the summer, she said. I disagreed, noting that we had an RDX for 3 years and it never had that smell, the MDX in question had never had that smell, and so on. With respect to the ding, she plainly hadn’t even read her own service department’s documents, which listed the ding as the first item to be fixed. She talked around the issue, saying, ‘not all little tings get noticed….’ and making other odd statements. When I asked if she’d seen the service documentation she said no, and said she’d look for it. My wife, learning of the conversation, called back to speak to [redacted] herself. [redacted] was again evasive, never taking responsibility for the fact that not only had they plainly not done work they said they would, it had taken 2 weeks for them to fail to fix the car, and they gave the car back to us with a bondo-splattered interior and mildew A/C system. This was not a pleasant conversation, to say the least.

Ultimately, we were put back in touch with [redacted] who explained that they, ‘didn’t have’ the door estimate from Geico (apparently they lost it) and that they’d fix it now if we wanted. I said the biggest issues were the bondo splattering and the mildew vents, but that we were wary of them doing anything to the vents that involved chemical treatments and I and my son are allergy sensitive. At some point later [redacted] had the car picked up and it was cleaned and returned to us in about a day. While the interior was now clean (except for the dirty cleaning rag left in the trunk) the vents still smelled.

At this point I should note that we were traveling a great deal over the summer and dealing with family illnesses and as such, didn’t drive the car that much, leaving it in the interim periods btw driving it in a parking garage that had housed our previous RDX and the MDX over a 4 yr period prior to these problems happening.

As some point later, with the vents still smelling and my son and I still being allergic, we asked to speak the service mgr again. It was now a new person, a man whose name I’ve forgotten, who said [redacted] was transferred to another dealer. He offered to take another look. [redacted] arranged another pick up and said they would do an A/C treatment.

When we got the car back the ventilation system now smelled like some sort of chemical substance and perfume. I then told [redacted] that I had told her previously we didn’t want chemicals used as they could make my son and I even more allergic – and unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened. After a while the perfume smell lessened – but to this day, about 2 months later – it hasn’t entirely disappeared and as the perfume scent has lessened, you can tell that the mildewy scent is still there. So not only did the A/C treatment cause its own allergic response in my son and I, it didn’t effectively treat the initial problem (!).

When we told [redacted] this she had two kinds of responses. She expressed sympathy that we were feeling sick in the car. But she said they had never really detected the smell themselves anyways, so….. there was nothing they could do.

We asked to speak to the highest level manager. [redacted] said [redacted] – who apparently had returned to this dealer as service mrg – was that person We left messages for [redacted] that were never returned. We tried contacting [redacted] again (note that email is useless here; she almost never responds even though she sends email updates about the status of your car service….) she told us some higher level manager at Acura would be coming through in 10 days or so, and we could talk to that person. She said she’d be in touch.

That was about a month ago…. And we are still waiting to hear from her.

I called Acura client services, who said they have no role in this process as dealers are independent franchises. They did give me a name for a general manager – a name [redacted] never gave us – [redacted] – whom we could contact. We plan to do this soon.

What has been maddening here is that the service dept. was very slow to fix an initial set of body work issues they never fully fixed, in doing so created a problem they never fixed and only made worse, and then began ignoring us.

At this point we’ve traded cars with my mother in law who has no allergic response to the car (thankfully). She drives our MDX and we drive her Nissan Rogue.Desired Settlement: We'd like the dealer to either terminate the lease for the car or take the car back on its lease early in exchange for leasing a new replacement car.

Business

Response:

Please be advised that today November **,2013 at 10:30 am.

[redacted] and I met at Acura of Manhattan showroom and discussed a few different ways of him come out of the lease.

We left the conversation to be talked over with [redacted] and the way the customer decides to go forward.

Please feel free to contact me anytime at ###-###-#### Or [redacted]

Thank You

* [redacted]

Review: I recently leased a 2014 Acura TL from the Acura of Manhattan dealership in February 2014. My original 2012 Acura TL lease was about to expire, and I wanted to know what options I had, and the option that fit my needs the most was leasing a 2014 TL. The day started off just fine, with the sales rep being extremely friendly and responsive to me and my wife’s needs. Within a few hours, we agreed to a model and price and I was content with our decision. However, this is where my satisfaction ends. I was scheduled to pick up my car the following Monday. When I got to the dealership, it turns out there was an error with the systems, and the original interior color I wanted (black) was not in stock. They only had what the system calls grey, although it looks to the average human as a khaki-type color. They then proceed to inform me that they only had one key, and I must stop by the next day to pick up the second key. These two items alone were not enough to cause my dissatisfaction, but what followed next set in motion a series of serious inconveniences.

The following day, I was set to only pick up my second key. I received a phone call in my office stating that when we filled out the paper work, they had inadvertently written the wrong VIN number on the documents. We had to re-sign everything and a new temporary license plate and registration was issued. But because of this VIN number error, I have had to contact my insurance company countless of times to get this corrected in their systems as there was complete confusion as to which car I actually had in my possession. On top of that, I have yet to receive my actual license plates and registration card from the NJ DMV, even though the temporary plates I have on the car have been expired for almost a month. I called the dealership to explain my situation, and have been assured that the issue has been resolved and the plates and registration are on their way. That was over a week and a half ago and not received anything to date. This is more of an inconvenience, as a police officer can pull me over at any time for this and issue me a ticket which could potentially cause my insurance premiums to increase (although I will say that this has not happened as of yet). So the only logical conclusion would be to not drive the car until the plates arrive, but then what is the point of having a car if I cannot use it due to the dealership’s incompetence?

I have had a lease with Acura in the past as stated above, and it was one of the most non-eventful, stress-free transactions I ever made (which of course is a good thing). When my 2012 TL lease was coming to an end, I only wanted to stay with Acura due to my prior experience. However, this circus-filled transaction has completely turned me off from your company and quite frankly, would return the car if I could. I am not writing this letter to get out of my lease, nor for any kind of compensation. I only wish to have my complete dissatisfaction documented as I cannot understand how it has been close to 2 full months, and not have this issue resolved as of yet? This is completely unacceptable and poor customer service!Desired Settlement: I want the issue resolved with the DMV so I can get my license plates and registration so I can drive the car without issues!

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me and the matter has been resolved.

I have FINALLY received my car registration and license plates yesterday, March **, 2014, nearly 2 months after I began my lease. Although I am happy this issue has finally been resloved, I am still completely unstaisfied with how long this took!

Sincerely,