The Ballad of The Defective Honda Alarm

"The Real Unsharer" (bittertaylor) 03/13/2015 at 14:26 • Filed to: None

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A few months ago, my 2013 Civic started randomly not flashing the lights / honking the horn when I would press the lock button twice to confirm my car was locked. When driving w/ the "lock doors @ 5 mph" option enabled, I'd occasionally hear the door lock solenoids trigger when I pulled away from a light. While annoying, not a big deal, and I planned on taking it in soon to get serviced once work stopped being nuts and I could schedule service.

Fast forward to Tuesday morning when I was awakened by a police officer at 1:30 AM telling me they'd gotten several calls over the course of the evening about my alarm going off in the parking lot of my complex. Though I was only given a warning, he told me that if they got another call that night, I'd get a citation. I wound up pulling the horn fuse and then drove it around for 30 minutes to recharge the battery which had lost a lot of juice from the alarm freaking out for so long.

Here's how things have gone so far:

Dropped off the car at a Honda dealer Tuesday morning after calling out of work and told the service rep what happened. Rep took detailed notes about what I'd seen/heard happening.

Was offered a rental car, as the dealer doesn't have loaners. I declined, as I have access to my girlfriend's car and we could figure out how to share it for a few days.

Got a call Tuesday afternoon from the rep to say that the car had an electrical code that indicated a fault with a rear passenger door latch assembly and that the part was on order. Offered to let me take the car home, but I declined, as I would've had to keep pulling and replacing the horn fuse. The rep told me the dealer could hang onto it.

Got a call yesterday saying my part was in and to bring my car in. Told the rep who called me that the car was already on their lot. He apologized and updated the notes.

Got a call yesterday night @ 8 PM saying my car was ready for pick up.

Made plans with my girlfriend this morning to pick up my car tonight.

Got a call 30 minutes ago stating that my car's alarm randomly started going off in the dealer lot and that they were pulling the car back in immediately to take another look.

Rep told me that the electrical code had actually indicated the driver's side rear door passenger assembly had triggered the alarm, but that the techs had only found a physical flaw with the door on the passenger's side rear door. Dealer only replaced the passenger's side rear door assembly, and now think they will have to order the part for the driver's side rear assembly and it could take a few days.

Suffice it to say, I'm pretty annoyed. I get that Honda likely wouldn't have paid for the driver's side door assembly and the labor if there was no physical fault seen, but this is still pretty crappy. Now I may be without a car for over a week.

Would I be a dick if I asked the dealer to either spring for a rental or to give me a discount on the service they performed on the car (oil + filter change, tire rotation, and alignment)?