Leased a new Civic with a maintenance plan

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So the wife really wanted a new Civic to replace her long-in-the-tooth Corolla and leasing was the best option for us. We paid extra for the maintenance plan so the dealer will be doing all service on it and have the records for doing so to avoid any gotchas at the end of the lease.

I must say having a brand new car that we don't actually own is kinda strange. I usually look forward to crawling underneath a new car and doing basic maintenance but I've kinda lost my love for it in recent years. It's been more a chore lately than a fun task. That said, it'll still be strange to bring it to the dealer for oil changes! I'm usually very paranoid about 'service technicians' touching my car in irrational fear of all the dumb things that can go wrong but I need to keep that in check now.

"It's not our car, it's theirs. It's not our car, it's theirs. It's not our car, it's theirs..."
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Congratulations!

How much was the maintenance plan? I can't imagine the car would need more than a few oil changes and maybe a filter or two over the duration of the lease.
 
Does anyone have experience with dealers giving them a hard time at lease return? I only know of a couple instances and don't recall either person having any issues. In neither instance were the people the type who would do any more maintenance than ABSOLUTELY necessary. One had some issues and a decent number of dings and dents.

If the maintenance plan includes "recommended" maintenance (i.e., anything more than what is required by the service manual, I would request a refund. If you're after documentation, that's free with the purchase of all required maintenance.
 
Originally Posted By: gathermewool
Does anyone have experience with dealers giving them a hard time at lease return? I only know of a couple instances and don't recall either person having any issues. In neither instance were the people the type who would do any more maintenance than ABSOLUTELY necessary. One had some issues and a decent number of dings and dents.

If the maintenance plan includes "recommended" maintenance (i.e., anything more than what is required by the service manual, I would request a refund. If you're after documentation, that's free with the purchase of all required maintenance.


Happens all the time now. Here at Honda/Acura, lease returns are now taken care of by a third party, and they look for everything. Gone of the days when the dealer would turn a blind eye if you were leasing another vehicle.
 
Admittedly my experience is over a decade old, but:

Our Civic was leased. We needed something super cheap and right then and never intended to keep it so a 149.00 mo lease at the “Honda Model Year Clearance Event” worked at the time.

We did consider returning it, but in the end the lease end buyout was thousands less than the car was worth and it had been a good car, so here we are with it after all this time.

The dealer did not have anything to do with the process - AHFC sent someone to our home to evaluate it. He was pretty thorough and used a conditioning guide that has pretty much industry standard measures much like a Total Loss conditioning tool. Burns, tears, scratches over 3” dents over a credit card, larger then the condition book (which is a sheet of paper size) things like that... I don’t recall him asking for service records (I had them) and it had not been back to the dealer so he certainly did not have any. In the end even though it had several things I was worried about he said there would be no charge turning it in and we’d be entitled to the return of the entire deposit.

YMMV
 
Originally Posted By: rooflessVW
Congratulations!

How much was the maintenance plan? I can't imagine the car would need more than a few oil changes and maybe a filter or two over the duration of the lease.

Thanks!

Well the plan was too much in hindsight, like $615, but it was sold as basically anything the car would need for 3yr/36k, which made sense at the time. But the car is only going to need oil changes so I don't know what I was thinking. Oh well. Live and learn. I may look into getting it refunded but I'm not going to lose sleep over it.
 
Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
Good choice, Honda did a good job on the redesign of the latest Civic.

I'm actually not much of a fan of its design. It's way too bulky for what was once a compact car. The wife loves it, though. It's definitely WAY more solid and 'safe' feeling than her 2002 Corolla that felt like a golf cart in comparison.
 
Had no issues returning my Focus. Guy stopped by to evaluate the condition of the car and it took him roughly 10minutes. No questions asked, no problem. Oh and I had a big dent on the front passenger door (very bad person threw a rock in my car looking to stop and hijack in a bad neighborhood) - didn't even look at it. 0 extra charges. GOt evaluation report and dropped the car off next day at the dealership - another 10 min. Very good experience.
 
I wouldn't have spent $615 for $90 worth of oil changes.

Demand your money back. Here in Arizona there's a law that you can forfeit a signed contract within a certain amount of days of signing it.
 
Originally Posted By: Nick1994
I wouldn't have spent $615 for $90 worth of oil changes.

Demand your money back. Here in Arizona there's a law that you can forfeit a signed contract within a certain amount of days of signing it.


How do you figure? Oil change is about $70 something here, every second oil change is a B service which runs about $200, then trans fluid changes (NOT cheap on newer cars), cabin and air filter changes, tire rotations and brake fluid changes every 3 years.
 
Originally Posted By: mightymousetech
Originally Posted By: Nick1994
I wouldn't have spent $615 for $90 worth of oil changes.

Demand your money back. Here in Arizona there's a law that you can forfeit a signed contract within a certain amount of days of signing it.


How do you figure? Oil change is about $70 something here, every second oil change is a B service which runs about $200, then trans fluid changes (NOT cheap on newer cars), cabin and air filter changes, tire rotations and brake fluid changes every 3 years.


Canadian prices plus the plan he paid for probably goes by factory requirements which are much less than dealer service "requirements". Dealers will do what benefits them. Oil changes at Honda dealers here are $30 with coupon. Maybe $50 with rotation. He'll be lucky if the $600 over 3 years includes anything other than oil changes and rotations. They will prob try to skimp out of air and cabin filters. No way they will do any atf changes during that time unless the MM code goes off for it.
 
Originally Posted By: mightymousetech
Originally Posted By: Nick1994
I wouldn't have spent $615 for $90 worth of oil changes.

Demand your money back. Here in Arizona there's a law that you can forfeit a signed contract within a certain amount of days of signing it.


How do you figure? Oil change is about $70 something here, every second oil change is a B service which runs about $200, then trans fluid changes (NOT cheap on newer cars), cabin and air filter changes, tire rotations and brake fluid changes every 3 years.
Dealer oil changes are $30-$40 max here every time, second ones don't cost more. Sometimes they'll run a $20 oil change special.

The car could also be taken to a corner oil change shop for a $15-$20 oil change.

Other than oil changes, a $15 air filter is probably all that it could possibly need, the OP could probably handle an air filter replacement himself.
 
Originally Posted By: mightymousetech
Originally Posted By: gathermewool
Does anyone have experience with dealers giving them a hard time at lease return? I only know of a couple instances and don't recall either person having any issues. In neither instance were the people the type who would do any more maintenance than ABSOLUTELY necessary. One had some issues and a decent number of dings and dents.

If the maintenance plan includes "recommended" maintenance (i.e., anything more than what is required by the service manual, I would request a refund. If you're after documentation, that's free with the purchase of all required maintenance.


Happens all the time now. Here at Honda/Acura, lease returns are now taken care of by a third party, and they look for everything. Gone of the days when the dealer would turn a blind eye if you were leasing another vehicle.


You can completely avoid any third party lease return process, but this requires you to buy or lease another vehicle at the same time. I've done it. Shop around, find a vehicle you want and tell this particular dealer I'll buy/lease this vehicle from you now, but you have to take my lease in free/clear, regardless of miles, condition, etc. Obviously it can't be a wreck with 100K miles on it. I've done it with Honda and Subaru. Both slightly over miles with well worn tires. If you intend to ride a lease to it's end, turn it in and walk away, it can get interesting.

I have also never once seen something come up in regards to lack of maintenance on a leased vehicle. What are they going to do, charge you for not doing oil changes every 7500 miles?
 
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Originally Posted By: Nick1994
Other than oil changes, a $15 air filter is probably all that it could possibly need, the OP could probably handle an air filter replacement himself.

Is that really all that the official scheduled maintenance book calls for? On a leased vehicle, you probably want to follow it closely, or else you might get dinged come lease return time.
 
Originally Posted By: mightymousetech
Originally Posted By: gathermewool
Does anyone have experience with dealers giving them a hard time at lease return? I only know of a couple instances and don't recall either person having any issues. In neither instance were the people the type who would do any more maintenance than ABSOLUTELY necessary. One had some issues and a decent number of dings and dents.

If the maintenance plan includes "recommended" maintenance (i.e., anything more than what is required by the service manual, I would request a refund. If you're after documentation, that's free with the purchase of all required maintenance.


Happens all the time now. Here at Honda/Acura, lease returns are now taken care of by a third party, and they look for everything. Gone of the days when the dealer would turn a blind eye if you were leasing another vehicle.

First, congrats to the OP. Honda did an excellent job with this platform/chassis which spawned this Civic, the new CR-V, and upcoming Accord.

I recently turned in a '15 Acura TLX. The third party company they used was very good to work with. The person on the phone was very knowledgeable and covered every detail I was wondering about without me having to ask. The person who did the inspection was thorough but found no issues with the car other than normal wear. Then turning it in at the dealership took about 15 minutes and was pretty painless.
 
Originally Posted By: gofast182
I recently turned in a '15 Acura TLX. The third party company they used was very good to work with. The person on the phone was very knowledgeable and covered every detail I was wondering about without me having to ask. The person who did the inspection was thorough but found no issues with the car other than normal wear. Then turning it in at the dealership took about 15 minutes and was pretty painless.


Did you detail it first with some HD Speed?
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