hweldon - I'm in Anaheim, too, so I'm sure we were dealing with the same dealership. And I agree, service manager is always best. We asked for the service manager at Hardin, and he was, supposedly, never in when we were there. sigh. I will never take my car back there again.

 

I was dealing with Weir Canyon Honda, but thanks for the heads up about Hardin.

 

Good to know about Weir. I guess I have to try to avoid all honda dealerships in the area, because I've heard that the Buena Park & Santa Ana ones aren't much better. Here's to hoping I don't have any reason to go back to a dealership!

 

So glad to read this (although I'm sorry that they're even MAKING people deal with this nonsense!). We just brought our 2005 HCH (118K miles) in for the IMA light and were ALSO told that the battery was about to die and it would cost $2500. We're in MA. The service rep said he searched all over and couldn't find any way to get it covered by warranty. SO glad we decided to wait before getting it done. I've found info online (at a HONDA site : http://automobiles.honda.com/news/pr...=2004091352267 ) that I'm going to print out and bring to the dealership. i also plan to record our convo while I have him confirm that there are no ways possible for this to be covered.

For the record, we are also having issues with the heating. In the cold, the heat will start blowing out 170 degree (F) air (temp taken at the vent) and even when you turn the **** to 72 or 62 degress it CONTINUES to do this for at least 15 more minutes. We literally open our windows to manually regulate the cabin temp. They've told us this is normal and Honda Corporate said they agree with the dealership.

It's heartbreaking to know how shady these people are. HEARTBREAKING.

 

Plinerd,

Take a look through the thread in this link, with regard to the hot air blowing from the AC; maybe you have a similar problem with a temperature sensor (which, in this other person's situation, also affected the IMA behavior):

https://www.greenhybrid.com/discuss/...working-24800/

 

Hm, so they're telling me that because our car doesn't have the PZEV label, it doesn't qualify, but I don't remember being given an option to get a PZEV or not. Argh...the conversations continue...

 

The IMA light might be acting up because of the high temperatures in the car.
The high temperatures might be due to a bad ambient temperature sensor.
This might not be your particular problem, but it's worth looking into first before going into an expensive repair. Read the link above and in the "poll" thread you posted.

 

Thanks so much for your advice. I worked with the 2 dealerships all morning and afternoon. The one that diagnosed the IMA thing said we're not covered, he ran our VIN, honda says it isn't covered, etc etc etc. I asked him for the next person in charge. HE said he'd talk to the service manager, and when he called me back asked me to go out to my car and see if the windows said PZEV anywhere on them. Nope. Told me to check under the hood. Nope, not there either. I asked for the NEXT person in charge, who was out of the office, and so I said forget that, let me know who the person AFTER that person would be. LOL. I ended up contacting customer relations and opening a claim with them. THEN, it dawned on me that we still have the paper that they put in the car windows at the dealerships. You know, the one with the features, gas mileage, price, etc? Yea, well, RIGHT under the standard features it says AT-PZEV. Yea, baby. I left a message for the original guy AND let the person at customer relations know about it.

So, last night I had sent an email to the dealership from which we purchased the vehicle (not the same as the place we just went) asking them about coverage and such. They called me today after I found that paper. We talked, hung up so he could talk to someone else, and he called me back and said we're actually COVERED for FIFTEEN years and 150K miles here in MA.

I let the other dealership know that we were all set, we were going to the original dealership to get it fixed and that they had found the information about our coverage. The guy sounded so annoyed. I told him that because the tests to diagnose are ALSO under warranty when the diagnosis is something under warranty, I would need to know how to get my fee back for that part.

The original dealership (where we bought car, where we're bringing it to be fixed now) agreed to look into the heat thing again. I was very honest with them, telling them the reason we went to Balise for the IMA thing was BECAUSE they had been unable to hepl us with the heat thing AND that if this IMA thing hadn't been covered by warranty my husband had commented that he would rather just get rid of the "piece of junk". So, we shall see.

BUT, my point is, we are on the road to getting the IMA battery replaced under warranty. I will also be making some suggestions that Honda and the dealerships try to find out why this was so hard to clear up and move forward to make it easier. It's one thing to make consumers be responsible for knowing their coverage when it's not through the dealership. It's a WHOLE other thing to then HASSLE them when they DO present info about that coverage.

(I got ALL of my conversations recorded on my cell phone, too, just in case... *wink*)

 

Good that you were able to find the original paperwork.

Even if there is no emissions sticker in the back window saying either AT-PZEV (also known as SULEV on this model) or ULEV, there is another one under the hood that is a bit more cryptic, but basically it describes the emissions system installed on the car, and they should be able to tell which emissions system is on the car by looking at it. Don't they have a service manual at the dealership? Yikes. It's all right there in the service manual.

PS: there is also a difference in the size of the fuel tank between the 2 types of HCH (scroll down the chart):

http://automobiles.honda.com/certifi...fications.aspx

The people who work at Honda should really do some homework.

 

I was trying to do this via the telephone because I figured going into the dealership with my 4 year old would be rotten (for him, for us, etc.). So, he told me that it would be "right there" under the hood. Regardless... *smack forehead*, right?