Business as usual at Honda Joho Korat

[bentarm44]

In 2007 I bought a new Jazz from Honda Joho, Korat.

V-TEC, manual.

All regular services carried out by them, with pretty good work done for fair charges.

Last month it went there for the 110,000 km service.

I wait on site for the service, which I can see from the service schedule is a minor one.

After a little longer than I expected (over 2 hours), I was shown the "inspection results".

It was being claimed that I needed:

1) 4 new tyres, as the tread on them all was equal to or less than 2 mm; and 4 new valves.

2) new front and rear brake pads, as they were all at 3 mm. remaining braking material.

3) 2 new rear wheel bearing assemblies.

4) new rear wiper blade.

There was also an "advisory" to replace:

6) both front disks, which it was claimed had been measured as 20.57 mm; with a claimed recommended min. of 19 mm.

7) both rear disks, which it was claimed had been measured as 9.12 mm; with a claimed recommended min. of 8 mm.

The estimated charge for the service, all replacement parts and labour, plus tax, was 24,055 BT.

The fixed cost of the service alone, plus tax, was 2,270 BT.

My natural, healthy suspicion was red lined by the tyres claim, as the front pair were less than 6 months old.

I declined to have any work done, paid for the service, and drove home; maybe a bit more carefully on the brakes than the drive out !!

As I say, natural, healthy suspicion; on the other hand I've had a good relationship with Joho in the past; and always rated Honda highly.

I decided the safest thing to do was inspect the vehicle myself, and discovered:

1) tyre tread depth front right 6 mm, front left 5 mm, rear right 4 mm, rear left 4 mm. ( all readings +/- 0.25 mm)

2) front right disk brake pads both at slightly over 4 mm, front left outboard at slightly over 4 mm, inboard nearly 5 mm.

rear right both at almost 4 mm, rear left both at just under 4 mm.

3) there is perceivable wear on both rear wheel bearings (this is a known fact regarding the Honda Jazz).

4) the rear screen wiper blade is fine, and as the washer water bottle was still brim full; I wonder what sort of test was carried out.

5) and 6) my measurements, done in several places on the working section of all 4 disks, gave almost the same results as stated by Honda.

It's easy to access the disks for this purpose, and the calibration of the vernier used by Honda must be very close to mine.

During the measurement of the disc pads, it became evident that I was removing the callipers for the first time, and that individual pad thickness had not been done previously. My measurements were taken at the thinnest part of the pads; they never wear equally across their section.

The disks themselves show very small amounts of "lip", and no signs of distress of any kind; 2 of them showed very minor scoring.

The tyres are all fine, I will replace all disk pads myself once the cool season arrives; the disks have years of life left in them.

Why the rear screen wiper blade got mentioned I don't know !

I'm going to have to get those rear wheel bearings replaced soonish; and will be listening out for any increase in the very slight oscillating hum I can hear at speeds over 90 km/h. At the moment I do not intend giving that work to Honda Joho.

The really stupid thing was claiming all 4 tyres had a tread depth of less that 2 mm. At the kiosk thing next to where me and my g/f were sitting, a Thai male customer was being told he needed 4 new tyres for his CRV, and that now was a "good time" because Honda Joho had a "promotion" on tyres that week. He declined the new tyres too, we smelled the same rat I think.

Some confusion as to the meaning of the word "promotion" here, I think.

The car's out of warranty now, so maybe I'll just do my own servicing from now on.

Nothing particularly new in a story like this, I know.

Just another example.

Happy motoring people.