Collins Honda Reviews 3

Misleading and Very Disappointing – Buyers BEWARE

I purchased a 2023 Honda CR-V for $45,000 from this dealership, from interstate. Unfortunately, the experience has been extremely disappointing. I was NEVER informed about the tyre condition before purchase. When the car arrived, I discovered the tyres were below 2mm and one had a puncture repair. None of this was disclosed to me beforehand.

When I contacted the dealership, they refused to replace the tyres. For a $45k vehicle that is less than two years old, this is unacceptable.

I made a significant financial decision based on trust, especially buying from interstate. Instead, I feel completely misled.

To future buyers: avoid this dealer if you can. If you must buy from them, especially from interstate, check absolutely EVERYTHING yourself before committing.

I would not purchase from them again.

I would love to be able to write a review of the whole car buying process, but unfortunately we didn't get that far. If you settle back into your seat, I'll tell you our tale of woe. My old man wanted a new car. My old man wanted a Honda Jazz (obviously as its an old persons car). Since retirement, my old man has the time, but not the inclination to shop around, so I was happy to spend half an hour with him as he brought a car. My job was just to make sure he didn't have his pants pulled down over the price and to distract the sales advisor as they were looking over his old car for damage. Piece of cake. Good deed for the week done. It turned out not to be this simple. At this point, I should probably point out I walk about as well as the 3 legged rocking horse. We pull up at the garage with cash metaphorically jangling in Dad's pocket, but there were no free disabled parking spaces. Dad, keen to buy a car and get home for his first nap of the day, hopped out of the car to ask if there were any other disabled spaces, only to be told by sales assistant, who didn't introduce himself (so you can avoid having to deal with him, I'll describe him as an older, unsympathetic gentleman), that they had 3 but customers had parked in them. As there were no customers on the forecourt and only one in the shop, this seemed unlikely. The only other customer got into one of the cars parked in the disabled space looked at my blue badge, said sorry, and that the garage had parked his car in that space. Anyway, to cut a long story short' after a bit of 'toing and froing between Dad and the sales advisor, the man who introduced himself as 'The Group General Manager' said, "I don't see what the problem is, there are loads of other spaces". I'm not sure if he thought this would help the situation, but it does show that Honda don't feel the need to sent their staff on disability awareness training. If there were 'plenty of other spaces', why don't the garage use them for cars in the workshop rather than expect their disabled customers to use them then hobble, stumble, wheeze across a forecourt. Safe to say, we took Dad's cash to a different garage, the VW one down the road, where they were very disabled friendly- in fact, very friendly all round. So I would not recommend this garage, as if they have this attitude when you are trying to buy a car, I dred to think what it would be like if you had a problem with a car you brought. As a follow up, going back 2 days later, all the disabled spaces were still full of cars from the servicing department, so they don't even take on board customer feedback.

As another follow-up, there are still cars parked in the disabled spaces that weren't displaying blue badges and there were no customers on site so the only conclusion is the staff are parking the serviced cars or sale cars in these spaces.

I own a Honda Civic (two, actually!) and one developed a SatNav fault, it would no longer read the applicable map disc. The SatNav is a standalone unit with all other media functionality exactly as it should be. Indeed, from a cursory look on the web, the work actually required is removal of the separate unit (half a dozen bolts and three or four electrical connectors), evaluation of same, and repair (by a third party, Alpine usually) or replacement.
Collins Honda of Hailsham, simply would not undertake the work and I quote, from correspondence received from them: "Where electrical units are concerned, this could be a very lengthy process, we would ask for payment before we proceed and a contingency on new faults occurring after any repair carried out", "Just to clarify, this is a job we do not want to undertake". These are actual quotes from the dealership's General Manager, David Williams.
I would never have expected a dealership to add such a caveat as requiring a "contingency" for new faults occurring after work was carried out. Perhaps from a cowboy outfit, maybe, but a main dealer?
This dealership's stance is also in direct contrast to what Honda themselves expect and, again, I quote "All of our dealerships are independently owned franchises, however, we do expect them to provide our customers with a high level of service. I have raised your concerns with the Area Manager for the dealership and asked that this is addressed as I feel the service you have received does not align with our expectations". I remain in correspondence with Honda UK.
As to Collins Honda, I am disgusted by their attitude and would strongly recommend that anyone considering using their services (sic) elects to place their business elsewhere. Absolutely appalling.