In all of the car dealers I've done business with over nearly 50 years, my experience at Colomos Country Honda in Guadalajara, Mexico, was unique.

They are a fairly large dealership with 25-30 service bays, and while I was there it looked like all of them were busy all of the time. A steady stream of cars entered and exited the service area the entire time.

I showed up without an appointment, without much hope, really of service, with limited espaņol at my disposal, and was immediately assigned to their service writer with the best English. His English and my espaņol were about equal, so between us we got the job done! There was no problem getting my car in for service, it would be about five hours before it was done. When he found out I was going to wait for the car there at the dealership, he changed the work order to Express Service, and the car was done in two hours.

It was a basic service: oil and filter change, rotate the tires, check and top off all fluids, and check safety items (brakes, tires, steering, suspension, etc.). By chance, my car ended up on the lift right next to the big display window in the waiting area and I was able to watch them at work. They didn't just make sure there were four tires on the car and nothing was falling off. They spent 45 minutes pulling brake drums, measuring and writing on the work order the tire tread depth, measuring the brake lining thickness with calipers, pulling hard on every exhaust connection and heat shield, carefully examining the suspension, ball joints, tie rod ends, looking for any trace of leakage from engine, transmission, and shock absorbers.

I had wanted to replace the windshield wipers (two years old in a hot climate) but they found that the Mexican Fit uses different wipers from the American model, and were unable to do so. They then carefully cleaned the windshield and the existing wipers, tested them, and declared them serviceable. In case you ever wanted to know, "windshield wipers" in espaņol is limpiaparabrisas.

When they were finished servicing the car, they weren't done yet. They sent the car over to the wash area and washed and cleaned the car inside and out.

During this time, my service writer kept track of both me and the progress on the car, stopping by three or four times to tell me how things were coming along.

The bill came to exactly what the service writer told me it would be before I left the car: $838. Before you have a heart attack, that is $838 pesos, or about $64 USD, including parts, labor, everything.

In the 23,000 miles I have driven the car, I have had exactly one non-maintenance repair: a wire broken in the wiring harness caused the Check Engine light to come on. Colomos Honda had some difficulty finding and fixing it because the US car differs from the Mexican ones, but they were able to make the repair in about an hour. The cost was so low that I didn't even bother trying to have it done under warranty.

Colomos Honda knows how to keep their customers happy.

tanstaafl.