Award-Winning Honda Dealer in Tampa

One award is exciting. Earning major recognition year after year says something more. At Brandon Honda, we’re proud to have built a long history of awards recognizing our dealership, our sales performance, our Service Center and, most importantly, the experience we provide our customers.

We’re a three-time J.D. Power Dealer of Excellence Award winner, earning Gold Status in 2026. We’ve earned Honda Sales Circle of Excellence honors every year since 2014, Honda service awards every year since 2021, CARFAX Top-Rated Lifetime Dealer recognition and the Cars.com Consumer Satisfaction Award 11 times since 2015.

It Takes an Incredible Team

Every award we’ve earned has something important in common: an incredible team of people behind it. Brandon Honda is made up of people who bring their talent, energy, heart and hard work every day – people who care about our customers, care about each other and take pride in what they do. There is so much to celebrate in these awards, but even more to appreciate in the team that made them possible.

To our sales team, who turn first conversations into lasting relationships, earn the trust that comes with one of life’s biggest purchases and put in the work every day to help our customers drive away happy. To our finance team, who bring knowledge, patience and persistence to every deal, working through the numbers, the paperwork and all the details that have to come together before the keys can change hands.

To our Service Advisors, who listen, explain, problem-solve and become the trusted connection between our customers and the work happening in the shop. And to our Honda Certified technicians, whose skill, training and expertise are put to the test every day – diagnosing problems, tackling difficult repairs and taking seriously the responsibility that comes with every vehicle placed in their hands.

To our Parts team, who somehow always seem to know exactly what everyone needs and where to find it. And to our BDC, accounting, administrative, detail, lot and support teams – the people answering the calls, keeping everything organized, making sure the details are right, getting vehicles ready and handling countless things every day that most customers will never see. A dealership this busy takes an incredible number of people working together, and every one of those roles matters.

Some members of our team have spent years building their careers at Brandon Honda, while others are just getting started. Some are the familiar faces our customers see every time they visit, and some quietly make everything work from behind the scenes. Different jobs, different talents and different paths brought each of us here, but it takes all of us working together to make Brandon Honda the team we’re so proud to be part of.

So before we celebrate a single award, we want to celebrate our team. To everyone who has worn a Brandon Honda name badge, put in the long days, celebrated the great ones, pushed through the hard ones and cared enough to keep showing up and giving their best – thank you.

Honda Service Awards – Recognized Year After Year

Taking great care of customers and their vehicles takes an entire team – and ours has built an award-winning record we’re incredibly proud of. Brandon Honda has earned both Honda’s Fixed First Visit Award and Customer Service Experience Award every year since 2021.

Behind those awards is a Service & Parts Center filled with people who know Honda vehicles and take pride in taking care of them. Our Honda Certified technicians bring specialized training and hands-on experience into the shop, our Certified Service Advisors help customers understand what their vehicles need, and our Parts professionals make sure the right Honda parts, fluids and components are there when the job calls for them.

It takes all of those people working together to keep a busy Service Center moving. From routine maintenance to diagnostics and more involved repairs, every visit depends on communication between the drive, the shop and the Parts Department – and on people who know their jobs, know Honda vehicles and care about doing good work. That’s the team behind the service awards Brandon Honda has continued to earn year after year.

Honda Fixed First Visit Award

Getting it right the first time matters. Honda’s Fixed First Visit Award recognizes performance in an area our Honda Certified technicians work toward with every vehicle that enters the shop. Diagnosing a problem correctly, knowing what it takes to fix it and completing the work with skill and care require training, experience and attention to detail. Earning this award year after year is recognition of the technicians who bring all of that to their work every day.

Honda Customer Service Experience Award

There’s also a lot that happens between handing over your keys and getting them back. Our Certified Service Advisors listen to concerns, answer questions, explain what a vehicle needs and keep customers informed while it’s in our care. Honda’s Customer Service Experience Award recognizes that side of the service visit – and earning it every year since 2021 reflects a team that understands taking care of the customer is every bit as important as taking care of the car.

Leadership at Brandon Honda

Great teams need leaders who believe in their people, recognize their potential and give them room to grow. At Brandon Honda, General Manager Sam Raabe and Fixed Operations Director Rachel Van Hart have built remarkable careers of their own – but both have also made a lasting impact on the careers of the people around them. Their stories are about hard work, taking chances, learning along the way and never getting too comfortable with the way things have always been done.

Sam Raabe – General Manager

Sam Raabe came to the automotive business looking for an opportunity. He found much more than that. What started as a career change became a path through finance, sales and dealership leadership, eventually bringing Sam to Brandon Honda in 2012. He joined the dealership as a Business Manager, quickly moved into the role of General Sales Manager and became General Manager in 2016.

From early in his career, Sam was willing to question the way dealerships had always done things. He believed managers should be out on the floor, involved with customers and actively developing their teams. He placed enormous value on training, gave people who were new to the automotive business an opportunity to build careers of their own and wasn’t afraid to try something different when he believed there was a better way.

People outside Brandon Honda took notice, too. In 2014, Automotive News named Sam to its prestigious 40 Under 40, recognizing him as one of just 40 outstanding young professionals in automotive retail across the United States and Canada. At the time, Sam was just 33 years old – and still two years away from becoming General Manager of Brandon Honda.

More than a decade later, Sam is still pushing Brandon Honda forward. But some of the best evidence of his leadership isn’t found on a sales report or hanging on an award wall. It’s found in the people who were given an opportunity, encouraged to take a chance, challenged to grow and trusted with more responsibility along the way. Sam once found an opportunity in the automotive business that changed the direction of his own life. Today, he gets to help create those opportunities for others.

Rachel Van Hart – Fixed Operations Director

Rachel Van Hart started at Brandon Honda in the Business Development Center in 2014. A year later, she became a Service Advisor and found a part of the business she loved. More responsibility followed – Service Director in 2021 and Fixed Operations Director in 2023. Rachel built her career one opportunity at a time, learning the business, taking on new challenges and growing into a leader responsible for one of Brandon Honda’s largest teams.

Her rise wasn’t a perfectly straight line – and Rachel doesn’t pretend that it was. Early in her time as Service Director, she went through a difficult year and missed her budget target. Instead of letting the setback define her, she learned from it. Rachel changed her approach, focused intensely on growing the technician team and helped lead Fixed Operations to record-setting performance. That willingness to learn, adjust and come back stronger has become part of the leader she is today.

In 2024, Automotive News named Rachel to its prestigious 40 Under 40, recognizing her as one of just 40 outstanding young professionals in automotive retail. For someone who began her automotive career in Brandon Honda’s BDC a decade earlier, it was an extraordinary milestone – and recognition of just how far talent, determination and a willingness to keep growing can take you.

There’s a quote hanging in Rachel’s office that says, “The most dangerous phrase in the language is ‘we’ve always done it this way.’” It has become something of a leadership philosophy for her, but another belief may say even more about who Rachel is as a leader: bring up the people around you. Mentors invested in Rachel throughout her career, and today she takes that responsibility seriously with her own team – encouraging people, opening doors, sharing what she has learned and helping others see just how far their own careers might take them.

Making Room for the Next Success Story

There’s something pretty special about building a career in a place where someone saw what you could become. Both Sam and Rachel were given opportunities to grow, take on more and find out just how far they could go. Now, as leaders at Brandon Honda, they get to be on the other side of that story – spotting potential in someone else, giving people a chance and helping them build careers they may not have imagined for themselves.

Somewhere at Brandon Honda today may be a future manager, director or even General Manager who is just getting started. And there’s something incredibly rewarding about knowing the next great Brandon Honda success story may already be here.

A Lot to Be Proud Of

Every award represents a moment worth celebrating, but none of them happened in a moment. They came from years of hard work, thousands of customers who chose to put their trust in us, people who built careers here, teams that kept getting better and a whole lot of days when everyone simply showed up ready to give their best.

We’re proud of every award Brandon Honda has earned and incredibly grateful for everyone who has had a hand in earning them. There’s a lot here worth celebrating – and a lot more still ahead of us.