We picked up hubby's car yesterday...

United States
February 26, 2009 7:13am CST
So here's the deal, we've been looking to buy hubby a car. He saw one online he was interested in, from a small, local dealer, and we went down on Saturday to look at it. There was only 1 guy there on Saturday, one of the mechanics, but the mechanic called the owner and my husband talked to him. They agreed on a price and my husband said we'd be back on Monday to pay for it. The mechanic told us the car needed a part, a CV joint or shaft or something like that. At first he said it was on order, then when he found out we were buying it, he said he'd get to it first thing Monday morning. So I show up Monday afternoon to pay for it. The owner wasn't there, and tells me he has to go somewhere to pick up the title because he didn't know I was coming that day! UM.... Duh!! Then I talk to the same mechanic we saw Saturday, and he says again the part is on order and they hope to get it soon. So, I pay for the car, and on Tuesday I get it registered and insured. I call the dealer Tuesday afternoon and ask when the car will be ready. The same mechanic that I've already spoken to twice says Wednesday by 3pm it should be ready. Well this dealer is on the other side of town, and hubby and I had an appointment over there that morning, so I told the guy to have it ready by noon because I didn't want to have to go all the way back over there later. Then, my husband calls first thing Wednesday morning just to make sure it will be ready on time. This time the guy says again they're still waiting for the part. My husband asks, where is the part coming from. The guy says an auto shop had to order it. My hubby thinks this is BS, because he thinks the auto shops usually have this part on hand, so he sort of yells at the guy telling him he's known the car was sold since Saturday and it should have been done, etc etc. And we want it ready at noon. Our appointment ended at 12:30, and then we went out to lunch. We got to the dealer at about 2pm. The mechanic we've been speaking to isn't even there! But another mechanic is telling us that now they don't think it's a CV joint, they think it's a tire problem. WHAT?? It took you since Saturday to figure out that it's a tire problem? Wouldn't that only take a minute to figure out if you had actually worked on the car like you said you were going to?? Well, this other mechanic is too busy with his own stuff to look at our car, so we're standing around like half an hour waiting for someone to do something so we can take our car home. Our mechanic still isn't there. So I speak up and say we've got somewhere to be and we need our car seen to now! The 2nd mechanic finally takes a look and sees a spare tire under the car. He takes that off, puts it on in place of the problem tire, and the car is good to go! I looked at my husband and said as loud as I could "It took them 3 f'n days to change a tire!!!" We complained to both the owner and the 2nd mechanic, but of course they all made excuses. Not one of their excuses was "We were busy". Hubby and I both agree, had they told us in the first place that they were busy, we could understand that. Had they said in the first place that they may not get to the car until later in the week, we could have accepted that. But all they wanted to do was jerk us around and feed us lies! So we're very upset with the service. But hubby is very happy with his new Durango. (Well, it's not new, it's a 99) It seems to drive well, and so far we've not noticed any serious problems. Sadly, hubby is most excited over the fact that his new car has working heat! (The heat was busted on his previous car). Alls well that ends well. Do you have a horror story about a mechanic who lied instead of trying to get to your repairs in a timely fashion? Have you ever had to go through so much BS to buy a used car? When was the last time you bought a car? Did you buy from an owner or a dealer?
1 person likes this
3 responses
@ghmatt (26)
• United States
26 Feb 09
I'm finally glad that someone else posted a discussion about this topic. I wanna comment on your story first, because I find it somewhat humourous and stupid all in one. Of course about the dealer, not about the way you handled it. If it takes three days for a mechanic to figure out that all it needs is a spare tire put on it. He shouldn't be a mechanic to begin with. Second, dealerships need to get their stuff together, people should be able to trust a dealership before they buy a car. This world is going all out of whack. Now here is my horror story. Not really anything like your story, and it's not really mine, it's what happened to my dad. My dad used to work for a guy, on his beef cow farms. This guy he owned alot of the rental properties in the town, and even had a Ponitac/GMC dealership, I mean this big dealership in town. And well, my dad needed a car, ours was wrecked, and we knew not to deal with this guy on used cars because he sold junk used cars.. We'll we went to a nice dealership on the other side of town and brought a 2004 Dodge Neon, the car was real nice.. Best car we'd ever had, Well we drive it for a week, and the guy who my dad worked for found out that he had bought a car from another dealership and so the guy fired my dad.. We drove the neon for about two months and the dealership calls us, and tells us that we had to return the car.. Come to find out the guy who my dad worked for had made sure we didn't get that car. So it comes down to... He fired my dad because he didn't buy one of his pieces of junk...And He made sure we couldn't buy a car at another dealership in that town.. Talk about horror, and people jerking people around...lol What is this world coming to? Anyone else got a horror story?
• United States
26 Feb 09
Well that is absolutely horrible, and probably illegal! I think your father was better off being fired and not having to work for that jerk again. Your father should have reported him, because I'm certain that's illegal, at least around here it is.
1 person likes this
@ghmatt (26)
• United States
26 Feb 09
I know it's illegal and we called and consulted almost every lawyer around, and they always gave some lame excuse about the case, by saying stuff such as "You have a really good case here, but we're not sure we can handle it." or "The case would win, but we don't want to go against Mr.Davis." So basically he kinda had the upper hand with the lawyers too.
• United States
26 Feb 09
Sorry to hear that. That seems like a pretty raw deal.
@GreenMoo (11834)
28 Feb 09
Congratulations on finally getting the new car. Your plans are all coming together, despite all the hassle. The garage I bought my last car from are a pain in the butt in the same way as this garage sound. I took it back there recently to get it through it's annual inspection and ended up with two of us plus the little one having to drive over there THREE times before it was actually ready to drive away. The guy phoned us after a few days of having it and said there was good news, it'd passed the inpection and it was ready to go so we headed over there to collect it. When we got there he said that actually there was a problem with it that he hadn't fixed because he wanted to check we were OK with it first. Fair enough, wanting to check with us, but what's wrong with the phone? Then we returned twice to find it wasn't ready as promised. The garage is a good hour's drive from our house, so that's six 'man hours' away from more important things for each wasted trip. Grrrr!
• United States
28 Feb 09
That's pretty much how this was, the dealership was quite a drive away, and I refused to have to come back at a later time. If I were you, I would have waited the first time and said "Nope, I came all the way down here because you said it was done, so I'll wait here while you finish it!"
@lilybug (21107)
• United States
26 Feb 09
Wow, that is a lot of junk you had to go through just to get the car. I would be upset too. I have never had anything like that happen with me before fortunately, but my sister has recently. She took her car in the day before she left town. She was renting a car to go visit a friend in another state. Her car should have been done when she got back, but it was not even started. She had to keep that rental to get to work and back for another week.
• United States
26 Feb 09
That's pretty bad, car rentals are very expensive! I would have thrown a fit!