Priority Honda Roanoke — Attraction in Roanoke

If you're looking for service, look elsewhere or drive your car off a cliff, at least you'll save some money. The only reason I'm giving one star is because 0 isn't an option.

Sit back for story time about negligence, fraud, or both. To start, when my wife and I owned a Honda, everytime my wife went in for maintenance at this dealership, the car needed "A Special Maintenance Package", only one thousand dollars! When I went in, Hey, here is your car, have a good day.

A family member has a 2018 CR-V with roughly 75K miles. She started having issues when the entire dash lit up with status lights and the car would lose power. Turning the car off and back on would usually resolve this. This was resolved and then it started to happen again. At that time, the car was taken to Priority Honda and we were told that it was a blown head gasket. We need $3700 to fix it. It was "fixed" and driven off the lot and the same issue popped up again within minuets of driving, only this time a weird noise accompanied the light show on the dashboard. Priority Honda took it back and said oh, actually, it is a turbo, and we need $2000 more to fix it. That was paid and again, the car was "fixed".

After a short time driving, the dash once again lit up and the car lost power, on interstate 81 with a toddler in the car. Luckily the car was driven on the shoulder until a safe exit was available.

The service department said they had no clue what was wrong, but they were going to "get into it." I can only assume this meant they were planning how to take more money from an unsuspecting customer. After a few days, TADA! The car now needs a new engine.

Now I have spoken with a friend who is a mechanic and he explained that this can happen, what is irritating is that it doesn't seem like Priority Honda was aware of this IN THEIR OWN brand of cars. So either through negligence or fraud, it seems like they were fixing stuff that either didn't need to be fixed, or kicking the can down the road at the tune of 3.7k and 2k when a new engine or partial engine replacement is what was really needed from the start, but they had "no idea" and according to them, none of this is related and couldn't possibly be their fault. The real kicker, instead of taking any type of responsibility or trying to make things right, they said they checked car fax and the car wasn't receiving regular maintenance. We spoke to our hometown mechanic who does routine maintenance and he can produce receipts. Another Honda dealership we called said they don't enter oil changes into Car Fax. So instead of working with a customer, they figured blaming the customer was the route to take. Kudos to them on that move.

In closing, we're still dealing with this. We asked to sit down with the GM and Service Manager for a face to face and the service manager rudely told us that "He can't tell us anything other than what Adam did, the car needs a new engine." No ideas, no compassion, just give us more money. We've contacted the BBB and are considering getting a lawyer. As I said, at best this is just pure negligence. The service tech had no clue what he was doing and at worst it's fraud. They knew what was wrong, but figured why not get a little cash up front, THEN we'll replace the engine.

So if you need service in Roanoke, I would look elsewhere personally. Things happen and cars break, but when you trust someone to do a job at a fair price, not sure this is the...

I have previously owned several Hondas (two Honda Civcs and a CRV) and already knew exactly what I wanted when I came to the dealership as our only goal as a growing family was a bigger vehicle, so we knew we wanted a Pilot. Easy. A salesperson, Rachel, approached us and we chatted for a few minutes. She then left us to decide on trim and colors and other stuff by ourselves (good sales move, no one wants a pushy sales person). Anywho, she was great and that’s where anything good ended. The finance person, Steve(?), was upset that after I told him I do not purchase any extended warranties, he could not convince me to purchase any. Surprise surprise. We then had a situation where we had originally traded in my CRV for the Pilot and immediately decided to keep the CRV, forcing them to reverse some of the paperwork. Annoying, I get it, but their job nonetheless. He made numerous snide remarks to the various members of my family who were involved in the process, but whatever we moved on. Onto service - I have had this car for ONE YEAR. Every time I set foot in the place they are trying to upsell something. I reached out about an oil leak which they insisted was simply some “spilled oil” from an oil change 3k miles before. After THREE TRIPS (mind you, I live an hour away) they finally discovered that it was in fact an oil leak as I originally told them and it was an issue that it apparently came with out of the factory. During this ordeal, the service manager asked me several times what was done to the vehicle at each visit. GOOD QUESTION. I’d like to know too. Unfortunately you apparently can’t trust the service providers there to actually do what they said they did. Fast forward to my next oil change - they went over the car and had $700 worth of suggestions of things that needed to be done and said that they would not honor my warranty if I didn’t do those things. They failed to mention I also needed an inspection (granted, it’s my responsibility to keep up with that, but crazy that they wouldn’t mention it along with the 5 other things they wanted to do). I took the car back (again, another hour trip each way) a week later, told them that I had a leak in my tire if they could look at it while they inspected it. (NOT) to my surprise, they said it was unrepairable, I needed TWO new tires because I “shouldn’t just replace one” for a total of over $550 and gave me a rejection sticker because they didn’t even have tires in stock. I finally shared my frustrations with the service provider (granted, he was VERY nice every time I spoke with him, but at the end of the day, he is a representative for the company he works for and unfortunately had to take the brunt of my frustration).

Conclusion: No “engine for life warranty” (that has a million stipulations) is worth dealing with this place. I took my vehicle to another provider the same day, had the “unrepairable tire” repaired, and got an inspection.

If I could go back, I never would have purchased a...

I want to start out with the staff is super nice and polite. & Prority did finally get the service done I needed & Im thankful for that.

However, after looking through other reviews and experiencing it first hand - this place seems to frequently over-schedule themselves. Mind you, they have signs all over stating they’re understaffed.

I originally called to make an appointment on Monday April 7th and they schedule me for Saturday April 19th. When speaking on the phone with the scheduler, they confirmed the wrong service (I asked for TPMS sensors programmed and scheduler confirmed tire installation). I then clarified again about the TMPS sensors needing programmed, clarifying tires are already on the vehicle. They say ok and the conversation ends. I think all is well.

I show up two weeks later for my appointment, and they then AGAIN state the WRONG service. Ask if I’m there for tire installation. I say no…I ONLY need my TPMS sensors programmed. At this point, the poor dude looks stressed and tells me they run skeleton crews on the weekend and only 2 techs there that day could do that service. One of them is maxed out for the day and he would have to ask the other if they are willing.

At this point, I’m annoyed because I drove an HOUR to this dealership specifically because it was in a bigger city and has a bigger service center and I’ve been having issues with smaller service places getting this service done (don’t ask me why, everyone seems to think it’s crazy that this has been such an issue.) And also, THEY scheduled ME on that day. But I say ok and wait. He comes back and says the tech said they can do it. My dad and I meander about Roanoke for THREE HOURS (uber-ing because their shuttle doesnt run on Saturdays) before they call me to tell me “the machine they have won’t do it and the machine they need won’t be there till Monday.” (im not fully convinced that wasnt a lie but i digress.) So I’m like ok… what time do I need to be there Monday? Person on the phone responds they open at 7:30a and to call to let him know I’m on the way. So I wait till Monday. Drive ANOTHER HOUR, get there 20 minutes before opening, (I do call, but because they weren’t open no one answered), just to be told my car will be ready by 5. I’m like this will not work, I need to get to work. I then have to pay for a rental ($38 extra dollars) and my car wasn’t done until 1 pm. (had to leave work to go get it or else I wouldve had to pay another day for the rental)

The main points - 1. Ensure your scheduler people accurately schedule service appointments, 2. Schedule accordingly & Stop over-scheduling yourselves - it does no good for your business or your employee’s. The customer should not have to face consequences of poor planning on your part and 3 – if youre going to continue to over-schedule yourselves, be more accomodating. making customers pay for rentals when you, as a business, blew them off on the day YOU scheduled them...