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Here is the deal. I purchased a new car on Tuesday (10/7/08). When I drove off the car lot I noticed a not so nice drive. I was told my family members and car salesman that the noise I was hearing was due to the car being a 4 cylinder (my last car was a V-6).
Anyhooo, Finally on Friday (10/10/08) I took the car to the dealership to find out what was really wrong. At first the sales associates gave me a "your crazy" look. Then when they test drove the car they discovered that the new car didn't have any power steering fluid in it. The power steering fluid valve wasn't correctly placed on the car (manufacture defect from assembly line), which caused the power steering fluid to squirt all over the engine and vital parts under the hood of the car. They now have to order a part that should be here today. I am suppose to be able to pick the car up today by 4pm.
SIDEBAR: ONCE THEY TOLD ME THEY NEEDED ME TO DROP OFF MY CAR FOR SERVICE THEY SENT ME OVER TO THEIR PREFERRED CAR RENTAL COMPANY WHICH GAVE ME A RENTAL CAR WITH NO GAS.
I was so angry last night that I started writing letter to Honda Corporation and the dealership that I purchased the car from. In the letter I asked for a new car (due to the fact I only had the car for 72 hours).
Depends on your state - some states allow cars to be returned within 30 days of purchase, but this is just a warranty claim. I hope Honda would fix the problem, give you your new car back, and you'd be happy from now on, but if the rental company had no gas, I'd call the rental company about that.
I call BS. Power steering fluid is flammable, if it was squirting all over your engine it could easily have started a fire. And even if that didn't happen, you would certainly notice something was wrong with the steering, as in Flintstones-like effort levels.
When I drove off the car lot I noticed a not so nice drive. I was told by family members and car salesman that the noise I was hearing was due to the car being a 4 cylinder (my last car was a V-6).
I don't understand. When was the noise occurring, when you turned? And turning was higher effort than on the car you test drove? And based on this info that you relayed to your family and the salesman, they said it was just because the engine configuration was an inline four?
I've actually considered disabling the power steering in my 2007 Honda Civic Si Coupe, to see what the effort is like. My old 1986 RX-7 had its power steering removed when I bought it and although the effort was very high at parking lot speeds, it had an amazingly connected and direct feeling at all other speeds that I would never trade away for easier parking lot effort...
The car was rough as I drove and when I turned corners. By the steering wheel fluid "squirting" out under my hood it squirted on my engine and belts under the car.
When I test drove the car, when I asked the salesman about the issue he said that noise was due to the car being a 4 cylinder and not a V6. He said V6's sound much smoother and ride better than a 4 cylinder.
Considering the circumstances, I believe I would calmly sit down with the Sales Manager (or higher, if possible) and explain how you feel about the problem.
In any case, I would definitely expect a New Vehicle or some type of compensation from Honda as buying a new car should be a great experience . . . NOT A FIASCO.
You can be low on PS fluid, still have the steering feel fine and only hear some noise when taking a turn and the fluid sloshes to one side of the reservior. Happened to me before. I was getting this groaning noise whenever I took a turn real fast. It was just low PS fluid.
Dealers are the worst. On an old BMW I took to the stealer for a recall, they handed it back to me with NO coolant in the car. On another BMW I took to a different dealer for a warranty repair on a window swich, they handed me the car back and hand't even TOUCHED the window switch. Luckily, I tried to put the window down before I left the stealer. Took them 5 min. to finally repair it. I just didin't want to pay for the part.
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that the noise I was hearing was due to the car being a 4 cylinder (my last car was a V-6).
