We took our 2015 Honda Fit in for alignment, and was told that there was a crack in the ream beam and to come in again to get fixed. (And it's likely to be covered by warranty.)

Bring it in, now they tell us that there's no crack but the beam is misaligned. Will cost $900 to fix, but won't affect the car (but our rear tires will wear out quicker).

We have had no accidents, and about 16k in miles.

This all sounds strange to me. Anyone else having issues?

 

....what's a "ream beam???"

 

Find out exactly how the beam is 'misaligned' because that 900$ repair quote sounds bogus to me

 

I'm assuming this is the torsion beam right?

If it's misaligned and still under warranty, why wouldn't this be a warranty claim?

Try another dealership. Also make a call into Honda NA 1 (800) 999-1009

 

This is the excessive toe issue in the beam. There's a lot of factors to consider and most people are making a bigger deal out of it than it is. In fact, if the tech turned the car getting it on the rack, it could have distorted the compliance bushings in the beam enough to get a bad reading.

I fixed mine with Moog alignment shims. Id ever pay $900 for that job. It sounds very excessive.

IMO, unless it is more than .5 out, I doubt the tire wear will be very noticeable specific to the beam alignment.

 

Sorry, it should be rear beam-- I got autocorrected!

 

Should indeed be a warranty issue, on a '15 with only 16k on the odometer....I wish you much luck with the issue....dealers are a crapshoot as to how they wanna handle stuff under warranty - not singling out Honda, just auto dealerships in general

 

How in the world does autocorrect 'rear' get changed to 'ream?'

 

unless your car is having tracking issues i would just leave it alone. these very basic suspension designs arent very accurate anyway.

i mean this car only has front toe alignment adjustability if at the dealer.

 

Mine was too. I discovered it when I found my right rear tire was over half worn out at 8,000 miles.

Dealer replaced my rear axle under warranty, but Honda wouldn't warranty the tire.

 

I speak a foreign language, and ream is a common word. You'd be surprised what the iPhone picks up on!

 

Ream is a word in English, too.

 

My daughter had the same problem on her 2011 which was wearing the rear tires badly. On first gen FITs you could install shims. Second gen FITs are the same design except Honda welded them together preventing the installation of shims. So she removed the beam and had it straightened. It took us about 1 hour to remove and reinstall it. The guy she took it to to straighten it took less than 1/2hour to do it.

There was no evidence of her hitting anything but it was over double the amount of toe allowed on one side.

If you can not get someone to straighten it, then get a used one out of the junk yard off of one that was not damaged in the rear. That should cost around $250 to $300 for the part (plus installation labor).

Why is it not warrantied?

 

Definitely should be covered under warranty, unless the OP purchased the car second hand.

 

I concur, in theory it should be a warranty claim. They will prob pull some BS like wear and tear though.

 

Given the $900 quote to fix it, I think "reemed" beam is more correct.
I also agree that at only 16000 miles and so new, it should be a warranty claim.

Especially since you did nothing to lead it to being so out of alignment.

I don't trust, it's cracked....so it's under warranty, bring it in, then the "discovery" that it is NOT cracked....so it's now NOT under warranty and is going to cost you nearly a grand to fix.

I'd find another service department.

 

I wanted to follow up on this-- we took it to a new Honda service department, that got really good reviews online.

They were excellent; took their time and really looked at the beam-- it was not cracked. They looked at the print out from the other dealership and said if our car was misaligned by that much it would be very dangerous to drive, and I would have absolutely felt major pulling. So they did their own alignment, discovered it was not "misaligned" but did need some additional adjustments, and did so.

And I'm pretty confident the last dealership had no idea what they were doing because...our tire pressure light kept coming on because there was a nail in the front tire, which the other dealership didn't find. (How can you not find a nail?!)

Thanks for all your advice to seek out a new dealership. I think we found a good one, and will be sticking with them.