30,000 km service costs Hi all,
I've been fairly inactive over the last few months. Really bogged down on both the personal and work fronts, but I thought I'll drop in to provide a quick update on the 30k kms service my car recently underwent.
This was at Ring Road Honda, Gurgaon on Sunday, Nov. 18.
Total cost was INR 16831 and included new wiper blades (around INR 1500 including parts and labour) and a new battery (around INR 5900 including exchange discount for the original battery which had become weak). The other major contributors to the remaining cost were oil change (~INR 3k), wheel balancing/alignment/rotation (INR 600) and lubing/tightening of nuts and bolts throughout the underbody, suspension and all doors (~INR 3k). Taxes themselves amounted to ~INR 2.2k!
I didn't notice this when I dropped the car in, and the SA didn't mention either, but if I had delayed the service by just a day I could've saved up to INR 1k. Honda is running a Deepavali dhamaka offer from Nov. 19 to 23 where prices on select parts are off by 10%, accessories off by 15% and wheel balancing/alignment off by 50%. If any of you is thinking of parts replacements or picking up OEM accessories, now is the time!
The car is 2 years and 4 months old now, so the wiper blade replacement and battery replacement were around the corner, more or less. The wiper blades were leaving streaks on the windshield, and I could make the headlights and cabin lights dimming slightly whenever the AC compressor kicked in - sign of a weak or weakening battery.
In addition to the usual items I complained about the various noises I was hearing from the suspension, brakes, clutch pedal, passenger seat mount and air mix motor.
Except the noise from the brakes, which developed recently, every other sound has been a long-pending issue which HASS either refuses to acknowledge that it exists, or refuses to investigate to my satisfaction, or says it has fixed but really hasn't.
The air mix motor sound was identified to a faulty part which they promised to replace under warranty when I visited them for the 25k service a few months back. They didn't have the part in stock then and so replaced it now. This wasn't smooth. Initially they said I'm not eligible for replacement now as the car's out of basic warranty and the air mix motor is a plastic part. I had to put some pressure on them and had to run home to get all previous service bills to prove that the car was serviced regularly. It was going to become a sordid episode, borderline, but thankfully everything got resolved. The cost of the air mix motor assy. is otherwise around INR 1800. The noise has greatly diminished after the replacement but hasn't vanished completely.
Other than that, even this time, only the brake noise has been fixed (no part replacement).
With regard to the tik-tik sound from the clutch pedal, the SA said that the noise didn't go away even with liberal spraying of lubricant. In his way, the clutch pedal assembly is reaching end-of-life and would have to be replaced. I think I should get a second opinion.
The front suspension sound, which has been a bugbear for over 20k kms and ~2 years now, is something that I should probably just give up on. The symptoms are very close to what many on this forum and elsewhere know to be the issue with faulty bump stops. I even showed the SA and mechanic Honda's TSB (07-043, for those interested) but they brushed the suggestion aside. Instead, the SA mentioned that the RHS engine mount is showing signs of weakness. I told him that still doesn't explain why the noise comes only when the wheels are turned (either way) and not when the steering is dead-on straight. I guess I just have to give up and stomach the damper replacement whenever it's due. These guys don't understand the concept of preventive maintenance. They constantly refer to the 4-year warranty (which as we have now learnt doesn't cover plastic parts), but do not understand that a slightly faulty part could build up to a bigger failure outside the warranty period. Ah, well!
Finally, there's also some uneven tyre wear. The left rear tyre is quite worn out in comparison to the others, so tyre rotation wasn't done. The front two tyres were switched L-R and the rear two were untouched. I thought this was strange. At least the rear tyres could've been switched L-R too to even out the wearing a little, but the SA would have none of it. In any case, he said the tyres (these are the stock OEM NCT5s) are good to go for another 10k kms.
So that's that - the honeymoon period seems to be over now that the car is into its 3rd year and I have to be prepared for the average maintenance cost to shoot up from its hitherto 50p/km to somewhere around 70-80p/km in the long run (right now it's at 1 Re/km).
Regards,
spadix |