Germain Honda of Ann Arbor

Reviews 3

BR

Bryan McIntyre

Here is my experience with Germain Ann Arbor To put this in context, you should know that between my business and personal vehicles, I’ve purchase 9 vehicles in the last 2 years and Germain has been, by far the worst customer service I’ve experienced. On Thursday Aug 8th, I went to Germain to see a used 2009 truck that they were advertising with approximately 35,000 miles on it. The dealership is nice enough (like every other one I’ve been in) they have nice displays on the desks talking about their customer centered company values, etc. my salesperson Jason seemed like a nice enough guy. While I was waiting, I got to hear about how they don’t put any used cars on their lot that have any thing wrong with them. They get a thorough inspection and any problems are fixed or they auction the vehicle, so we can feel safe buying from them. When I drove the truck, I liked it but I noticed two things, the low tire pressure indicator was on and I could feel a slight vibration sometimes in the front end. I’d already been told the truck had been on the lot for a while, so I assumed one of the tires was a little low and that it probably needed a rotation or maybe an alignment. When I mentioned this to Jason, he indicated that the tire pressures (checked out) and would probably take a couple of days for the sensor to reset. I probably should have investigated further, but with only 35,000 miles, I figured this made sense and everything would be fine. I bought the truck and the next morning, I took it to have the rotation done. It took the tire shop all of 10 minutes to figure out that one of the pressure sensors was faulty and I replaced it for about $70. After the rotation I noticed I could still feel the vibration, so I took it down the street to my mechanic to see if it needed an alignment. After 10 minutes on the hoist, they determined the right front wheel bearing was failing. Both of these items were very easily and quickly found by my local mechanics, so in my opinion, Germain is either not doing any inspection, knowingly selling vehicles with problems, or whoever is doing their inspections is incompetent, I’m not sure which. The bearing was going to cost me about $500, so I decided to contact my salesman Jason on Friday 8-9 to see what their policy was on these kind of issues. He indicated that he would have to check with his boss who would be in on Saturday, and he would call me then. Saturday came and went with no phone call. I waited until Tuesday 8-13 and called again and left Jason a message, reminding him that he was supposed to call me. Still no call back. On Friday 8-16 I emailed the company, hoping I just had a salesman that didn’t care about his customers, but that the COMPANY actually cared. I got a fairly prompt phone call, which made me hopeful until I realized that the lady calling me hadn’t bothered to actually READ my email. She somehow mistook my detailed message for a sales lead! When I suggested that she read the email I sent, she said she would pass it onto her manager. Monday 8-19 I got a voicemail in the evening from Jim Farkas, a manager, who apologized and sounded like he wanted to help. He indicated he would be in the office all day Tuesday and I should call him back. Tuesday 8-20, I left a message for Jim in the morning, then again at the end of the day. You guessed it, he never called me back! All in all, I left 2 messages with my salesman Jason and 2 for Jeff Farkas. It’s now 9-8, no callbacks, I’ve fixed the truck myself and no longer expect anything from Germain. They’ve shown their true colors. It looks to me like once they have your money , you no longer matter to them. Is this the kind of company you want to do business with? Just to be clear, this bad review is not primarily because the truck had problems, it’s because of their failure to even respond to my inquiry.

KE

Kevin Doyle

Updated November 2013. The other day I thought I should remove the Germain license plate frame since I am so disgusted with them over the fact that the paint on my Mazda started peeling the first time I got it washed. Instead I realized that I should let people know where I bought the car so I made up a sign for the window explaining how the paint started to peel the first time I washed it after buying it from Germain. Buyer Beware! Updated February 2013. I recently got a promotional e-mail from Germain and I thought I would go see if my review had been deleted or something. I was surprised to see a message on the review from the Sales Manager suggesting I call him. I wanted to make it clear to readers that the Sales Manager, who has my full name, has made no effort to contact me and instead expects that people who write reviews go back out to look at them??? Really? Also, I e-mailed my salesman with my complaints on two occasions and never even received as much as an acknowledgment. When you read the sales managers responses on here you should know that this does not mean they have made any effort to contact the customer and resolve the issue. I think it is quite disingenuous on Germains part and reflects very poorly on their customer service. Oh, and just so Germain knows, I do not plan to hop out onto Google reviews everyday to see if they have responded. Im sure my name is in your records. Original Review: I recently purchased a used car from Germain and I wasnt real pleased with the experience. The first problem is that the clear coat on the car started peeling about two months after I had it. Maybe that potential is something I would have noticed in the finish if I was more experienced with cars, but it kind of surprised me that something like that something like that would all of a sudden start happening. Second, the car had an installed option that was illegal in the State of Michigan. I think that a dealership that knows cars would be in the position to know that and should have informed me of that. The State Police officer that pulled me over said that most dealerships dont, but I think that ethically the dealership should inform the buyer of such things. Finally I didnt like the high pressure sale of the service contract when completing the sale. Friends have said that this is fairly common and my surprise at this was probably due to the fact that I have not purchased a used car from a dealer in over 25 years. That said, the fact that Germain was using a very new service contract company with no established track record (I did some research and there are some very reputable companies out there that have been around for many years but the company they were using had been around for maybe two years) combined with the difficulty I had in securing basic facts about the contract necessary in evaluating it (deductible information and whether the deductible was per item repaired or per repair visit) did not make me think positively about Germain.

IA

Ian Nessler

TL;DR: Made an appointment online a week in advance for an oil change and tire rotation. When arriving I was informed that appointments had no effect on oil changes, ended up waiting 2 hours. Staff was friendly, price was decent, "Express Service" was not express. UPDATE: Tried to get oil change two other times and the waits were as follows, Tuesday Morning: 2hrs, Monday Afternoon 1.5hrs. Will not be returning to this service center. Full Review: I am writing about the service department of the Germain Honda Dealership. I recently moved to Ann Arbor and needed to find a place to get regular maintenance on my Honda. With 292 reviews and a 4.7 average rating I decided to try out Germain Honda of Ann Arbor. Initially I was impressed with the website, the scheduling service, and noticed that they offered express service on Saturdays. Since I work during the week the express service on Saturday was appealing to me. I scheduled an appointment a week in advance for 10:30 AM on Saturday. Skip ahead to the day of my appoint I arrived at 10:35 AM. Staff was friendly and told me to sit in the waiting room while they serviced my car. I made sure to mention my appointment and took my seat. I waited until 12:15 PM and then my name was called indicating my service was finished. I spoke with one of the staff members and asked why an oil change/tire rotation took two hours even though I had an appointment. He said appointments are not for oil changes even if you make one it is a first come first serve service ( wish I had known that when I made an appointment). He also stated they only had 1 tech in today. This brings up another issue. Why would there only be one tech on a Saturday during there "express service"? When I got there and when I left there were around 6 cars in line. How can it be express with this many cars and only one technician? Bottom line: staff was friendly, cost was affordable, "express service" was no where near express. I will try again on a different date and see if the time required decreases. EDIT: I have attempted to get my oil change at Germain Honda two times since my first oil change experience and each time I was unable to schedule a service and had to drive to the dealership to determine how long I would have to wait. On a Tuesday Morning the wait was 2 hours and then today on Monday it was 1.5 hours. The way that the service department conducts its service does not make any sense to me. With a first come first serve policy you are unable to schedule an appointment and therefore you may get lucky and only have a half hour wait but in my experience it has always been at least an hour. I will not be returning to Germain Honda and suggest that if you value your time that you do not either.