Berlin City Honda of Portland

Had a pretty unfortunate experience here before even getting to the serious car-​buying phase. I dealt with the most unprofessional salesman who, upon my decision to put off purchasing a new vehicle (which I communicated very honestly), decided he would call me an «ass», find me on Facebook through no mutual friends, and start sending me messages. I called and left a voicemail for a manager soon after, and never heard back from ANYONE regarding this incident. I would not recommend even beginning to do business with these folks.

I’ve been there three times. First due to a recall. Second to fix a seat belt sensor that was keeping my airbags from working. That time, I was quoted almost $ 500. When I picked it up, to my surprise, I owed $ 0.00. No, that’s not a typo. They have a nice system where you are assigned a rep, like a case manager for your car. The person who had mine, Bradley I think, got Honda to cover it under the warrantee, even though the sensor in the seatbelt isn’t technically covered.

I purchased a vehicle from Berlin of Honda and although the vehicle purchase seems to have been «fair», I raise exception to their financing. I went to their dealership backed by my own bank but decided to see what rates they offered. It’s been over a month and I still get letters from banks about «my» loan application. It’s like they splashed my loan application to everyone, which caused my credit score to suffer. Do yourself a favor and don’t even try to get your loan thru this company… they obviously have no clue how to protect their potential customers’ financial credit score.

Last year I had my car in for service and they said it was fine, but then it didn’t pass inspection because the brake lining was completely worn out! Recently I received a coupon from them for a free oil change, inspection, and car wash as incentive to return as a customer. Well, I made an appointment for those services as well as a tire rotation. When my car was returned to me, it had not been washed or inspected and the tires had not been rotated! Although they apologized, they did so in a patronizing and condescending manner (I’m an 83 year old woman). I won’t be going there again!

I returned to trade in my leased Honda FIT for the new 2015 Honda Fit and was served by Daniel Kahn.
First off, they have torn down the old buildings and build a brand new, giant, shiny sales and service center. There’s still all the complimentary drinks and snacks, plenty of seating, and it’s generally a comfortable environment.
Daniel was the definition of «above and beyond.» He saw to my every need while I was there. He’s a new hire, so he was still learning some of the ropes, but when he didn’t know something, he found out for me immediately. He hustled back and forth and here and there and got me what I consider to be a very fair deal.
I’m happy I went back to Berlin City Honda, and I’ll probably go back again when my lease is up.

I was not going to post anything regarding my experience with this company however today I have reached my breaking point.
Initially I worked with several dealerships when researching a new car purchase (Accord V6 EX). When I had inquired at Berlin City about fog lights (which I later found were standard features) the sales department stated they would be happy to include and added a $ 600 line to my quote. I purchased my car there in December ’12 after they were willing to match the price of another dealership later in their business day. As I was closing the sale I was informed I had to pay several hundred dollars for security etching as all their vehicles’ windows are etched upon arrival. When I asked the salesman to show me the etching lo and behold it was not etched. The sales manager was visibly irritated and told me I was «lucky» I did not have to pay for something I did not want. By the time this sales /​financial process completed their dealership was closing for the night.
Rather than hold the car and detail the next day the sales person handled it and wanted me to take the car that evening. I drove the car from the dealership to my home in Portland and parked it in a single wide driveway. A friend picked me to go out and upon returning home, he suggested lighting up the car with his headlights from the side so he could see it.
Upon doing so there were very large scratches, including a large looping scratch on the rear driver’s side door, similar to motion consistent with washing a car. When I first took it back to the dealership I was informed it was complete and had a coworker drive me to the dealership. Upon arrival, we both noticed nothing had been done with the large scratches, the car had only been washed. I believe it took 3 visits for this to be resolved.
Now that I have had my vehicle for some time I have been receiving a number of different e-​mails and calls for me to sell my vehicle back to them (think EASY UPGRADE campaign!). After 2 – 3 separate contacts, I asked them to remove me from the list. This January I was contacted again and brought my desire not to be contacted to both Seth Ionta as well as General Manager Ron McIntyre.
Today, on a gorgeous 60 degree Saturday, while just wishing to relax, I received 3 calls within the matter of 45 minutes — NO EXAGGERATION. It was clear I was going to be harassed until I answered and Yvette Cote informed me she was an acquisition specialist for my car. I will admit I handled the conversation less than professionally but when is enough enough? They clearly keep my personal information as she called me by my name so how difficult would it be to include a note not to contact a customer who has requested that multiple times?
The above also does not touch upon their service department. I had a previous Accord in which the catalytic converter had failed and was quoted approximately $ 800 – 900 for the repair by their service department. Fortunately, I have a friend at work who has a contact is extremely familiar with differing warranty statuses. It turns out a catalytic converter is covered under warranty up to 80,000 miles, which I had yet to reach. Further, when they handled a recall repair on a wiring harness my lojack system, which had been installed at time of purchase, was rendered nonfunctional. I was informed this is not part of their recall work and I would have to pay to get it functioning again.
Both my girlfriend and I have more poor experience with Berlin City Honda however the above is likely more than sufficient information for buyers who wish to be informed.

I gave this dealership high marks when I bought my 2011 Toyota camry 2 weeks ago sales great sales manager great but when I had to deal with the business manager wow Awful I had my insurance company send a binder 4times. He would not respond every time I called the insurance I called and texted him well let’s just say My camry sits in the yard while I wait for this professional to send me the papers I need to register my car. The first impression that I got of the dealership was great. Great salesman (Steve Soucier) n greet sales managerBUT unfortunately the last person I dealt with was J R business, manager and that left an awful taste i n my mouth after being ignored numerous times just to get an answer so I could register my Car I really would not recommend anyone to buy a car from berlin city Honda toyota

At this very moment, I am quite pleased with my experience at Berlin City. Though I am just at the start of my relationship with them. Yesterday I drove off their lot with a 2013 Honda Civic.
I selected them based on hearing the decent feedback on them. As well as a lot of homework into the Honda Civic. I felt the sales person, Scott, was a good match for me. I did fact check everything he told me on my first visit. I felt he did not mislead or try to over promise me on how it would price out. I would recommend him.
Since I filled out a few forms online for quote requests from various dealerships, I feel like my phone has been ringing and my email box full. What I appreciated about Berlin City was that all contact with me was the info I requested and not just spam. Of course they would want to remain on my radar, but it was quality contact and not just a bombing of info. This also made them stand out to me.
I was told as a female, not to go solo car shopping. But with the power of Google and social media, I feel I was able to shop around and really sort through all the various lines used at all dealerships. Berlin City did not make me feel like a girl buying a car. I was treated like a well informed consumer who they respected.
We will be joined together for a few years, so my review will of course adjust during any hiccups that come down the road. As we all know, a dealership will be your best friend when shopping. The true test is the relationship after you leave the lot. But I have a feeling I will not be let down.
I love my car!!!

I will preface this by saying I am in sales myself, and by no means have wowed every customer I have been in contact with, and have received complaints in the past, no one is perfect, and I am generally pretty understanding when it comes to the sales process. I brought my brother and my father (any salesman with common sense I imagine would see this as someone in decision making mode) who bought a civic from this dealership a few years ago. I live in mass so i took the day off from work and met my family at the dealership. Joe met us at the door, he is clearly new so thre process was a little slow (I know generally they don’t receive much training) but he was genuine. After spending a couple hours going over different cars and options, we settled on a 2010 civic. (We had repeatedly asked to see the two 2007s they had listed on their website and finally were told one was at a sister dealership and the other was at the body shop, wether this was a sales tactic or truth I do not know). The asking price was 13,400 ish without all the other usual fees. And we told joe we wanted it for 12 500. He came back with a senior sales advisor whose name I did not catch, with a counter offer of 12,900. We wanted to see more options (ignoring the if we could do it for 12,500 would you buy it today closing lines). My brother clearly told them again if they wanted the car to move today, show us the best price. After he asked a second time the sales advisor stood up, and announced «I’m done» and walked away from the table calling my brother an ass under his breath. This was after about 10 min of negotiations with him. At first I thought this was just a poorly contrived sales technique of trying to hard ball us. We decided to leave, my father went to the sales manager to let him know he was upset by this, my brother went outside. The sales advisor stated while we were inside he didn’t have a problem with us, just my brother, as if that should be consoling. Sir you are a sales professional, your job is to deal with difficult people, if you have a problem with a potential customer doesn’t mean you throw a hissy fit, or you shouldn’t be in sales. Unfortunately after 10 min he ruined joes sale, wasted my entire day, and reflected poorly on Berlin City Honda. Obviously this is one experience but I would neve do business with them, and they lost my fathers business as well.

«I’ve never been to a car dealership where the sales person and/​or manager didn’t follow back up with me to see how they could make the sale. At month’s end no less. I never felt like my salesperson was working with me to get what I needed. I certainly didn’t expect to be disappointed since I bought my Honda at Berlin City and I brought my wife here last month to lease her new Civic and we both had good experiences.»
As online community manager for the company I work for, I thought I’d post the above comment on Berlin City’s Facebook page to see what kind of response I’d get from their brand manager. To my surprise, I got no response and found that my post had been removed from the page.
So much for building trust through transparency.
Facebook: You’re doing it wrong. #FAIL
In short, my salesman argued with me, tried to tell me that I didn’t know what was good for me and relentlessly pushed me to lease after I made it clear that it was not what I wanted. Mr. Benoit, the manager was pleasant and made me an initial offer with decent financing that I took home to discuss with my wife.
I called the next morning and spoke to my salesman to see if we could lower the payment and he was audibly put out with me, told me it was «impossible» and refused to work with me. I was never contacted by a manager and have heard nothing back since.
I don’t feel that I was being unreasonable — I was simply trying to negotiate. Looks like the 1^st offer here is the only one that matters. I wasn’t planning on it but I’ll be visiting their competitors and buying somewhere else.

I’ve been looking for a new car and went here looking at a Honda. As a 24-​year-​old woman, going to a car dealership alone, I knew they’d try and push me around a little. I test drove a car and was pointed out a «nice place to put my purse» (sexist, unnecessary) and then sat down to look at all the details. Two men sat on either side of me and basically told me that they were bending over backwards to get me into the car and I wasn’t showing any sort of commitment. They told me they were going to great lengths with their manager trying to get me a good deal and were increasingly hostile when I realized I wanted nothing to do with their business and started to leave.
Basically, the experience was belittling and I’m so grateful I didn’t give them my business. These guys are assholes. Go elsewhere.

While I’ve had limited experience with this dealership, I have brought my car here a few times over the years (’04 Honda CR-​V) and have never had a problem (definitely cannot say that for all Honda dealerships in Maine – Lewiston, I’m lookin’ at you!). Earlier this week I had some issues where my car stalled while idling, as well as some other issues that have been ongoing. I wasn’t sure what to do, and knew that most mechanics in the area take a week or two to get into, so I brought it here. I worked with Ryan, who wasn’t able to look at it much right away, so I got a rental from them. He wasn’t able to replicate the issue, so (with my permission) brought my car home to look at it some more. After doing that and looking at it the next day further, was unable to replicate the issue. He also had another mechanic do some diagnostics on the other issues I had going on, and they did a general inspection of the car. He called me regularly to let me know what was going on and what they found (they pointed out some maintenance I was aware of but haven’t taken care of) and gave me quotes. Despite the fact that my car needs quite a bit of work, they were very reasonable and helpful, and I look forward to using them again. Also – their oil changes are cheaper than anywhere else I’ve found (significantly) and they do free state inspections.

My beloved 91 civic hatchback wouldn’t start a few weeks ago so I had it towed here because I didn’t know of any other Honda specialists around (somewhat new to the area).
They run a 5 minute test on my car and tell me my timing belt probably broke and if that happened then my engine might be destroyed, but they’d have to look closer to be sure. I asked them to please do so. They come back 10 mins later and said my timing belt had some slack, but was not broken, but that my engine was still probably destroyed due to that, but they’d have to take some pieces of my engine apart to be sure, which would take a day. I ask them to please do so. I sadly take the bus home.
A guy calls me the next business day at noon and tells me I need a new engine, which will be $ 2300 installed. That is more than I paid for my car, so I say I won’t be doing that. He says «hey, I certainly don’t blame you!» and hangs up. I go home and do some internet research on what exactly might have happened to my car. Apparently if your timing belt breaks, you might get bent valves, which is such serious damage to the engine, that it usually makes most sense to replace the whole engine instead of fix it. I call them back and ask if they can give me some more specific details on what was wrong with my engine. The guy («Dirk», not kidding) says in a really patronizing voice «well SUUUUURE what do you want to know?» I asked him to describe the extent of the damage to my engine. He repeated what they told me the first day: when your timing belt doesn’t work properly, you can get severe engine damage. I asked him are the valves definitely bent? He says «oh, yeah, the valves are definitely bent».
So, I call around a few other garages in the area getting a quote on replacing the engine. They ALL tell me $ 2300 (weird because they all have different hourly rates). A week later I pick up my car and get the bill, which simply (and expensively) only contains $ 116 for the 5 minute test that they ran while I sat there the first day. Strange, because I thought they kept my car an extra day to take it apart some more. I figure they’re just being nice and taking it easy on me with the bill since I basically lost my car. I tow the car to my parents driveway and it sits there for the next two weeks. My boyfriend and I were saving up up for a big move across the country this fall, right before this happened. Obviously losing our car throws a major wrench into our plans. Suddenly we’re saving up to buy a new car instead.
I spend the next two weeks pouring over craigslist ads constantly, looking for affordable cars or possibly the cheap replacement engine that I could buy for mine. Yesterday I come across an ad for a 17 year experienced honda mechanic who is looking for extra cash putting honda engines in for $ 350 a job. I contact him. Tell him my story. He says he can’t believe Berlin City told me that, that I don’t even have the type of engine that can get bent valves from a broken timing belt. He says I should tow it into his shop and he’ll determine the problem for free. This morning at 9:30 am I have it towed into his shop. At 10am he calls me and tells me my car is running. Apparently I have one. broken. sparkplug. He has everything fixed for $ 50. (review of these guys coming next).
Apparently these a-​holes are more interested in converting service customers into new car-​buying customers than fixing cars. So pissed off right now, the last three weeks of my life have been hell due to their lies!
Stay far, far, FAR AWAY from this place. VERY!!! FAR! AWAY!!!