Rep Power: 228

Okay, so this past summer, I bought my beautiful 2003 Civic. Loved it the minute I saw it and loved the mileage. The salesperson said it was a Honda Certified Used Car to both my dad and I. I was sold and it was a great buy.

Anyways, I found out today that the noise coming from my rear wheel while braking is a warped drum that finally is contacting the metal interior. Honda tells me it will be $250 for new rear drums and pads, even though the pads still have 60% life left. I told them that it was unacceptable and that this didn't sound like a normal wear item. They call up HoA and find out that one, they can't cover any of the break wear components, and two, which is the kicker...

IT WAS NEVER A HONDA CERTIFIED USED CAR!

Now, I am unbelievably pissed as I bought it from Jay Honda, not just some side of the road dealer. Any thoughts to what I should do next as far as getting cash and the brakes fixed because of this. The Honda tech here said that the drums would take a while to get warped and that the certified used inspection should have caught it, which lead us to finding out it was never certified.

The truth is that I bought this car because of the piece of mind that it was certified, otherwise I would have never paid the premium and bought the car. So, any thoughts as to what I should do or ask for when I go to the original dealer tomorrow?

 
Rep Power: 227

Hey man

I remember going through something like this, except the car was a 83 Oldsmobile regency brougham. Dad had found it for me, and I was buying it from a Preacher. So I thought I was good. 5 miles after purchase, the drivers side window turns sideways while rolling down and falls into the bottom of the door. Im like, well thats a bitch, but no problem! Im drivin in my new car on a sunny day. Life gives you oranges, make some oj.
Well about 10 min after the window fell, it starts monsooning all over south carolina.

50 miles from base, the car starts hesitating, eventually stalling out but continuing to roll. So I shift it into neutral, restart the motor, and shift back into drive, no problem. The rain is starting to get on my nerves a bit at this point.After the 5th or 6th hesitation, stall and restart im kinda pissed. I paid 1800 cash for this car, and its not really outstanding IMO. At some exit, I had to make a u-turn. I underestimated the turning radius of the '83 Olds, which is up there with the '63 CVN 65. I put it in reverse to back up a bit and finish the 3-point, and the car stalls out again, all sideways in traffic and whatnot. So im like, **** this ****, and I go to restart, but it wont start in anything other than park or neutral. So I went to shift into park, and the shifter linkage starts freewheeling on the column. The car will not shift into park or neutral, linkage was separated.
So there I was, sitting in my preacher-certified used '83 Olds, sideways in the backtown traffic of nowheresville South Carolina, amidst the greatest rainstorm ever seen, broken left window, stalled out with no way to start, no way to roll, nothing. At some point, I got out to thank all the nice people who were honking, yelling and throwing various numbers fingers up at me. Luckily, the hood release linkage worked, and in the dark of the storm, I was able to see into the engine compartment just enough to see the shift linkage of the automatic transmission. The shift wire had popped out of its little roller-ball-joint connection and broken.
So I set the ebrake, back to engine compartment, reach way down deep, shift the car into park, start the car, back to engine compartment, shift into reverse, back to cockpit, release e-brake, finish backing up so I can get un-sidewaysed, set e-brake again, engine compartment, shift transmission into drive, cockpit, release e-brake and im back in business.
At this point, the Pacific Ocean had less water than the interior of my car, but forget about it, im movin again

I get the thing home, fix the window track and diagnose the stalling. Turns out the crankshaft position sensor was beginning to fail from age and was forgetting to tell the ECU how fast the engine was spinning, so the motor got all confused and died. I replaced all the stuff, called my pop and was like, that preacher just hustled me for $1800.
In the end, I got the car all fixed up, took it back to the preacher-man and he bought it back for the $1800 plus the cost of the replacement parts I got, some touch-up paint and headliner spray-adhesive. I didnt charge him for the labor. All in all, I came out +$50 ahead, which covered the gas round trip (~150 miles in 2003). The preacher had his car back, all shiny-fixed and very-less broken, courtesy of me, a dumbass nub who should have known better. So it seems that, the only way to learn a lesson is...to actually learn the lesson. The best way to not get hustled is to get hustled once and be more careful next time.

By the way, I just bought a set of Brembo factory-replacement brake rotors (for the front). They were ~40 a piece here in Atlanta, and they work great. The site had brembo replacement drums listed too...i think they were pretty cheap (40-50 a piece). The pads are cheap too, $25-50 at your nearest parts store, depending on how much magic fairy-dust you want in the replacement pads.

If you have the time, a jack, 4 jack stands, a haynes manual, lug-wrench, allen wrenches, phillips head screwdrivers, various open and closed-end metric wrenches, some needle-nose pliers, and dont mind losing all your knuckle-skin dicking around with drum brakes, you can do all this yourself.

Replacement drums @ $50/drum.....$100
Replacement pads @ $50/set......$50
Minimum cost to fix, w/o buying tools you dont have, nothing else broken:
$150

The amount you save may be worth it, if you have the time and the patience. If not, oh well. If you do it yourself, your not only saving money, but you learn how to fix your own brakes, you learn how its all put together and works together, and you can call bullshit next time some slick technician/salesman tries to tell you how something they've never seen works.

 
Rep Power: 811

drums do not wear out very quickly. my car has 70k miles and they are nowhere near needing replacement. soounds like yours were abused.

 
Rep Power: 227

^^^I agree with gearbox

oh yea, if you have something in writing from the salesman saying it was certified-used, then you have grounds for legal action.

That would be called "fraud". If you could prove that the salesman knew the condition of the brakes of the car, like a dealer inspection report after addition to inventory, then you have grounds to sue for serious.

But if you don't have anything in writing, have a coke and a smile and go fix your brakes.

 
Rep Power: 228

Well, I live in Cleveland and it was a Cleveland car when I bought it with 33,000 miles, just off lease. The rear drums are severely rusted according to the tech i took it to down here in southern Ohio. They at first thought it was the rust but after they chipped it off, it still made the noise.

I dont know. I feel swindled and I can't do the repair myself as I don't have a garage or tools at home or here and I am at school, so I have no garage or warm area to put my car on jack stands (if I even had any). I'll have to check the paperwork when I get home to see if it says its certified or not.

 
Rep Power: 227

Go back to where you bought it from and tell them that they either
1) Pay for it
2) You sue them for fraud



Wagner