Apple Tree, Asheville NC
 

United States

They did 3 jobs.

Two of the jobs were recalls...

First recall: rear grab handle brackets that needed replacement because they could possibly puncture an airbag during airbag deployment.

I didn't check whether they did this properly or not as I was not confident about removing the headliner, to look. However they returned the car to me with no obvious damage to or misalignment of the headlinerds or the rear pillar plastic covers. Did they actually replace the brackets? At this time I don't know.

Second recall: door handle brackets that needed replacement because the originals weren't properly galvanized. They clearly removed the door panels, pulled back the humidity-control transparent plastic film, and put the film back in place (not quite the right way, and smearing adhesive sealant around a bit) and I think they actually replaced the brackets but I'm not sure. They definitely used some kind of petroleum distillate in the door in the area of the brackets and their invoice said they used some kind of rust-controlling spray, I forgot the name. On one door, in replacing the plastic film, they got adhesive on a spot where it contacted the window when it was rolled down-up, smearing it onto the window every time I rolled it down and then rolled it back up. I fixed this myself by removing the door panel, wiping the sealant off with mineral spirits, and replacing the door panel. For each window there was one spot where originally the plastic film was behind a cable; when they replaced the plastic film they just pasted it on top of the cable. Not a big deal. Saved the technician about 30 seconds and looked sloppy. Also, for one door panel, one of the plastic snaps wasn't snapped into the door. I was able to get it to snap into place by simply smacking it with my hand. They also made a tiny scratch on a part of the door that you don't see when the door is close, not far from the door latch. Looks like they scratched it with the tool they used to pry the plastic door panel off. Not the kind of thing you would notice easily. And shallow, not down to bare metal.

Third job: oil and filter change. It looks like they actually changed the filter, and the oil, and they overfilled by only about 1/8 to 3/16 inch above the top mark on the dipstick. However they did a really sloppy job of replacing the plastic shroud underneath the engine. Not one of the screws was tightened down all the way. One screw completely missed the captive nut it was supposed to screw into. A few more miles of more driving and it would have fallen out and been lost. The other 5 screws were just started into their nuts, and tightened no further. The 2 plastic push-pin fasteners at the rear looked secure. They had been replaced by bumper-style pushpins, which should work just as well as the original style pushpins, the kind with the Philips head slot in the head of the center pin, with thread-like things on the center pin, and having a square part that the pin fits into. I'm not sure if it was Apple Tree that replaced the original pushpins with bumper-style pushpins, or if they were replaced at a previous oil-change done by another dealer.

After seeing how poorly they replaced the shroud I went out and bought a Harboring Freight 1.5 ton "aluminum" 40-pound rolling hydraulic jack – light enough so that I could lift it into and out of the hatch and bring it with me to someplace where I could work on the car – and 2 pairs of 2-ton capacity jack stands that have a min height of only 9.5 inches. I then cut 2 pieces of 2 by 12 lumber to length for use as "starter-ramps" so I could get the lift pad of this rolling jack with a very low-height lift-pad to reach the very low-to-the-ground, very far-in from the front, and generally hard to reach center front lift point on my 2015 Fit.