[Bob in St. Louis]

Thanks man! 

[James Romeyn]

OR........ Before you call for a military aerial strike, and a crime scene investigation complete with forensics, you could focus on having the car fixed

Good advice.  Problem is, till the video is produced no one but the owner has witnessed the symptom.  It's more difficult to fix an unwitessed symptom & quite easy to deny it's very existence.  Again, the video becomes physical evidence in lieu of real time experience for H & the dealer.   

Assuming you still live in the zip code I found in your profile, there's a truck load of Honda dealers in your area.  Pick one.  Focus on the ones that have earned awards from Honda Corporate:

http://automobiles.honda.com/tools/dealer-locator/results.aspx?address=&city=&state=&zip=94566&dealername=&filters=

That might be valid.  OTOH, with all due respect, having had much experience w/ the motorcycle division (owned about 65 bikes many of which were Hondas, owned three Honda cars & lots of dealer experience) I would be inclined to put little faith in such awards.  The quality of service work is determined mostly by the mechanic & his tools. 

Any dealer will see the entire warranty history showing that the owner is the only witness to the alleged symptom; Honda factory may have a specific policy for repeat warranty claims of reported unwitnessed events such as yours. 

Again, the video cures this because it becomes virtually impossible for anyone including Honda to deny the symptom unless the video is "proven" to be "fraudulent" or the symptom was "rigged".   

[Bob in St. Louis]

If there's an issue with trust between the dealer and the customer, then that's where the problem lies. This must be resolved first before the vehicle enters the service bay. If a customers symptom is disregarded as "user error" or the customer is labeled as discredible, the car will never be fixed.
As a service department employee for 20 years (some of which was with Honda) the service department should always take the customer for his word regardless if the symptom is duplicated in the shop or not. As heavily reliant as modern vehicles are on their three dozen or so on board control modules, we the service department, are equally reliant on these computers giving our diagnostic equipment some form of path or diagnostic flow chart for us to follow. When the vehicle says "all clear", our equipment says "all clear", and the symptom isn't seen in the shop, doesn't mean that it isn't really happening. The burden of proof is not on the customer. It is the shops duty as an extension of the manufacturer to take the matter in their own hands and contact the Technical Assistance Center, or whatever it will take to remedy the problem. All the while, the customer is driving alternate transportation at no charge to them.

Honestly, if a customer brought a video of a seat moving on it's own, I'd have a hard time being professional and keeping a straight face. I mean come on....You really went through the effort to do this so I can watch your seat move? Really?
I would humor the customer by watching him fiddle with his camcorder so I can see the replay, but at the end of the day what matters is the car.....I don't need proof that it's happening I want the shops valuable time spent either with the car in a bay, or the technician on the phone with TAC. Not watching movies of seats moving, that's silly.

Regarding certification, yea....Some of what you said is true. A fixed vehicle is the result of the "mechanic & his tools". No amount of smoke and mirrors will ever fix a car. Period. But, Those awards from the manufacturer are not given to dealers that can't prove their abilities. I've worked at shops that actually display awards showing the technicians prowess with nail repairs in tires (those were actually embarrassing). No, I mean real awards. From the vehicle manufacturer.
Yes of course any dealer has access to the manufacturers nationwide website of a vehicles warranty history. But I seriously doubt the car maker would ever deny a customer good service, or "cut them off" by never servicing the vehicle again due to excessive complaining or "alleged" symptoms.

I am very hopeful to have recently seen a Saab repaired (finally) in my shop that has been here EIGHT times with an erroneous failure message on the display. The message was telling the driver that a reverse light bulb is inoperative when in fact it's not. It wasn't until the sixth visit that we actually saw the message on. But at no point in time was the customers integrity in question.
99% of customers would have been livid by now. Screaming buy-back, calling the local news media, stomping their feet.....but this guy always walked in with a smile on his face, and left with a smile on his face and a handshake. I thanked him one day for his above average level of patience and he told me it was all due to his father. He was an independent repair shop owner for over 50 years. "If there's one thing Dad told me about the business, it's that these things happen and there's no sense in bitching about it".

By the way, about this guys car that's been in my shop eight times.........It's a 2007 with 8,600 miles.
He's had a loaner car everytime. And on top of it, the failure isn't even a safety related issue.
Imagine what I'd do for "Some Young Guy" and his situation. *

The moral of the story is, The repair shop doesn't want to be in this position anymore than you do. At this point in time they've lost their ass on warranty claims. At some point in time, the shop wants your car fixed more than you do.
Give 'em a break.

Bob

*  {I really wish he had a different screen name right now....no jokes about things I'd do for some young guy} 

[Len_Dreyer]

Well, the problem is still there, but now they tell me that they've replaced everything and they don't know what else to do.

At some point in time, the shop wants your car fixed more than you do.
Give 'em a break.

Bob,

The problem appears that "some young guy" feels like he has had the repair door slammed in his face. Now, if he was dealing with a service manager like you, he probably wouldn't be feeling this way. He's feeling stuck and looking for his break thus asking for help. Given the circumstances, being advised to go back to the same dealership or find a new one, might not sound like good advice but in the long run might be. So, when do you stop the merry go round if you are getting no satisfaction?

[James Romeyn]

I nominate Bob to be cloned asap, for every auto service shop in the USA.

[some young guy]

Imagine what I'd do for "Some Young Guy" and his situation. *

The moral of the story is, The repair shop doesn't want to be in this position anymore than you do. At this point in time they've lost their ass on warranty claims. At some point in time, the shop wants your car fixed more than you do.
Give 'em a break.

Bob

*  {I really wish he had a different screen name right now....no jokes about things I'd do for some young guy} 

Hey Bob, my name is Scott. Believe me when I tell you, I'm more than patient with them. I haven't been the least bit rude or upset with them. I can completely understand and even empathise with them. They seem to be quite frustrated with me (or my situation) though... In our last conversation, the service manager listed off all the rental cars and repair attempts that they had made for me, as if I had been working them to get me and my two kids into that sweet Chevy Cobalt for some sort of personal enjoyment or something. I'll probably just call Honda Corporate next week. I wish they took your attitude on these type of things, but apparently, that's not the case. Their service used to be decent before they got their brand new facility too. You'd think a modern, well equipped shop would be a good thing for them...

[JLM]

I had my Mazda 626 into a local Cadillac dealer for body work a couple of years back (they were close, the car was barely drivable, and they were on AAA's preferred list).  Bottom line, when I finally got the car back the work was incomplete.  Along the way I'd complained a number of times in a civil manner.  So I called AAA and arranged for another shop to finish the work.  I then wrote a letter to the dealership and AAA with a chronology of their errors.  Of course I got a call from the manager, who I'd spoken to a number of times, acting surprised that I was "that" upset.  My response was, "Does a guy have to go into a triad or make threats in order to get your attention?"  They then threw a $100 at the problem (my way), but it was a month of hell.

The "ghost" problems you're experiencing can be the worst.  After 30 years of owning cars, I prefer the simplier ones.  At 50 something I can still move my own seats, mirrors, windows, and locks.  I don't even need a $1000 navigation system to find my way.  Just more stuff to go wrong, need fixing, pay for, finance, spend fuel to carry around, and (as the shampoo instructions say) repeat (with each change in vehicle).  Unfortunately those simple vehicles are getting harder to find every year.

[Bob in St. Louis]

At the risk of sounding like some cliche boring training manual, I'd say it really does take an entire team to repair a car.
I've worked at places as a tech where the guys at the desk had poor moral, and basically didn't give a rats ass if your car got fixed or not. That makes it hard for the tech to do his job when the liason between the customer and him doesn't communicate properly. I've also worked at places where my technicians were the one's who didn't care. In either case, the end result is a car that doesn't get fixed, an unhappy customer, and poor CSI.
"CSI" is Customer Satisfaction Index and is the vehicle manufacturers yard stick for the overall quality of a dealerships entire service department. High CSI in conjunction with up to date training requirements generally means you are entering a place where everybody has the common goal of making people happy and getting the cars fixed. The overall moral of the place is probably pretty high as well.

Modern cars equipped with all the high tech bells and whistles like touch screen satellite navigation, global positioning systems, night vision, radar, fiber optic communication networks, blue tooth, voice recognition can be extremely difficult to diagnose. Unlike "the good ol days" when each electrical system was relatively independant of each other, they now somehow, somewhere tie into each other and can effect each other in mysterious often bizarre ways. Hell, with onboard data communication networks, I've seen cars brought in on a towtruck because the radio went bad. The radio broke the chain and all communication back to "the Mom computer" was lost. 

Bob

[some young guy]

...Yeah, I sometimes miss my old '65 bug or my trusty yet quick and agile '72 Datsun 510. They were easy to diagnose and even easier to work on. But those days are gone and now I don't even bother changing my own oil. Hopefully this will all work itself out out...

[Levi]

"Bells and whistles".  That's true.  This is a honda and we are talking about power seats.  They don't event have a memory position sensor so what is so complicated about it?  I would say take the car to another dealer or shop.  They should be able to replace the wire harness.

[Levi]

Here is your wireharness.  Sorry it is a little huge but your dealer or shop should have one.  There is nothing complex about fixing power seats. 



Seat components

[Bob in St. Louis]

Levi, The LX, EX, and EX-L model Pilots all have a position sensor in the drivers seat frame. The sensor even has it's own sub-harness that is tied into the SRS (supplemental  restraint system - {airbag}) harness. It's a two wire circuit, one white and one black wire that feeds into the SRS module. It also ties into the seats weight sensor sub harness as well.

If memory serves, most new vehicles have a position sensor to help the SRS system know how close the driver is to the steering wheel. We wouldn't want to blow the heads off our grandma's who drive with their noses touching the steering wheel spokes. 

The software I have has taken every safeguard against me "taking" the circuit diagram, so I'm unable to post it here. Maybe if I save the image and upload it to my gallery I could do it, but I'm too lazy.

Bob

[Levi]

They have memory for the power seats now.   

Levi, The LX, EX, and EX-L model Pilots all have a position sensor in the drivers seat frame. The sensor even has it's own sub-harness that is tied into the SRS (supplemental  restraint system - {airbag}) harness. It's a two wire circuit, one white and one black wire that feeds into the SRS module. It also ties into the seats weight sensor sub harness as well.

If memory serves, most new vehicles have a position sensor to help the SRS system know how close the driver is to the steering wheel. We wouldn't want to blow the heads off our grandma's who drive with their noses touching the steering wheel spokes. 

The software I have has taken every safeguard against me "taking" the circuit diagram, so I'm unable to post it here. Maybe if I save the image and upload it to my gallery I could do it, but I'm too lazy.

Bob

[Levi]

Regardless, any factory trained technician can replace all wire harnesses.  It is time consuming but if that what it takes to fix the problem, it should be done.

[Bob in St. Louis]

Absolutely. WHATEVER it takes......."get-r-done". 

Bob

[some young guy]

Okay, here it is...


This is the EX-L 4WD


These are the seat controls... no memory!

[Levi]

I knew that.  Only Acura has memory in their seats.

[Bob in St. Louis]

I love the license plate!   

[some young guy]

Okay, just to continue the time line: I called Honda America today. They have assigned me a case number and will be getting back to me...

[Bob in St. Louis]