Hoping to see if you someone can help me out. If I buy this car, it would be the first time me buying from a dealership. Im not familiar with their usual routine when it comes to selling used cars.
I have my eye on this car at T&T Honda. The only thing holding me back from proceeding further is that the dealership won't allow me to do inspection on the car. In other words, as I told the sales rep, Im not buying the car unless I can take it to my mech (who is less than 10km away from them) first to do a full inspection.
But they keep deflecting by saying "Its a Honda certified car, all our cars that come in have to meet Safety standards...our inspection is much more thorough than a lot of mech shops" blah blah blah. "Why do you need to inspect it when we already did it?"..."All parts that needed to be replaced, have been replaced".
They showed me a brief service history record and the car report and it looked good aside from one thing that is a potential red flag.
The car had a tranny flush done to it when it came in 2 months ago. It was done right at T&T Honda. I asked them about this, because I always thought that Honda always recommends you stay away from tranny flushing machines done on their cars.
But the sales rep said that they have a flushing machine and they use that on all the used cars that come in to their lot. Is this true? Sounded really odd because I always thought that Hondas recommendation for their tranny flushing is 3-4 repeated drain and fills. NOT using a flushing machine. If someone can clarify this for me, that would be great.
If its true that the Honda dealerships do use flushing machines on their trannies, would this be a deal breaker for you? I hear these machines do more harm than good and can kill your tranny.
About the inspection, they said that pretty much no one asks them ever take the car that they are considering buying to have it inspected by their own mech, when they see that its a Honda certified. Really? You see this being true? Sure a lot of customers may walk in and just buy on the spot once they see that its "Honda certified", but there are still people like me who always get it inspected by their own mech before buying any car, regardless of what the dealership says.
Is this standard for dealerships to not allow their cars to be inspected at customers mech shops?
They said, I would have to buy the car first, then inspect it. If Im not happy, I have 7 days to bring it back for another car. This would just create a lot more running around, paperwork and trips back and fourth to the dealership. Besides, there is no other car on their lot that Im interested in, and obviously you wouldnt get your money back. Regardless, its just creates a lot more fiasco for nothing when you can easily avoid it.
If they cant allow this, then I wont buy the car. Just from past experiences in car buying, I always inspect it with my mech before buying any car.