ago in Honda by
I was looking at a few new cars over the weekend. When I did a test drive in a 2019 Honda Civic, I noticed the A/C was not blowing cold air. The dealership told me that they disable the AC units when they sit on the lot for a while, and they would have to reactivate it if I was looking to buy.

This seemed very suspicious to me since I have never heard of anything like this before. Is this an actual procedure that dealerships do to protect AC units on cars, or is the dealership just lying to get a sale.

(This was a new car with no previous owners)

Thanks.

3 Answers

+1 vote
ago by
Sounds like bs to me. I work at a dealer and never have I heard this.
ago by
Yep, it's part of the PDI process. They obviously didn't PDI it correctly, or it was cold outside and they didn't know it didn't work when they did do the PDI.
ago by
Right. That’s the only way a non working ac system would get missed is winter.
ago by
Thanks, that's kinda what I thought was the problem. Is there some sort of certificate that is issued when a PDI is complete, or are they just supposed to be done regularly for the cars on the lot?
ago by
PDI stands for pre-delivery inspection. The purchaser of the vehicle will never get a piece of paper showing its completion. You just have to trust that a thorough job was done like it's supposed to be. It's done as soon as the vehicle is delivered to the dealership.
ago by
Also, even if they handed you the piece of paper proving it's completion it wouldn't do you any good because let's face it, with or without it, the repairs would still be covered under warranty even if they're not supposed to be, and it's not like you could hold them accountable for anything. You can ask them for the PDI RO and if they're nice they might give it to you, but all is gonna say is yep, they did it. Which doesn't mean they actually did...

Many dealerships fill out the paperwork, submit it to the manufacturer, get paid for doing the PDI, and never actually do it. They just take off the wrapping, park it in the spot and call it good. This is why many times you go to test drive a vehicle and the battery is dead and won't start, or the tires are low, or there's flat spots in the tires, or it only had 2 miles on the odometer (never test drove it), etc. Many more tell tale signs they didn't do a good PDI, or they don't maintain their vehicle preventing "lot rot"the term used to indicate component failure due to sitting on the sales lot for too long without regular maintenance.

I guarantee that there's gonna be thousands of dead batteries due to no one maintaining them during the pandemic. Which is actually the sales department responsibility, but usually gets charged through warranty, which is then charged back to the dealership for not following policy... Anyway... It's something I deal with a lot...
+1 vote
ago by
That's salesperson is pulling your chain. I will say this though, after owning and riding in many Honda civics over the last twenty years they do take a while for the compressor to do its job and start pushing out cold air.
+1 vote
ago by
The salesman may not be BSing you like other posters here are saying.

Many cars are coming out with a new type of refrigerant, called 1234yf and there has been a supply shortage. I am not sure about the current situation, but last summer vehicles were being shipped from the factory without refrigerant in them because of a shortage and dealers were removing it from a vehicle on their lot and installing it into cars before being delivered to a customer after being purchased.

Again I am not sure about the current situation as I work in an independent shop but I would not be surprised if the supply of this new refrigerant is still had to come by and not in every single vehicle on a dealers lot.

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