I purchased a used vehicle from Becker. I checked it over the best I could prior to the purchase. The fluids looked reasonable, there was no check engine light on, and it drove smoothly with no odd noises. I checked the Carfax as posted on Becker's site, and it was clean as well. As Becker Buick has been around for a long time, I felt more confident in purchasing a car from them vs. purchasing from one of the many there-today-gone-tomorrow shops that populate Sprague Ave.
The next morning I hopped in the car to drive to work and the check engine light immediately came on. I pulled the trouble codes from the car and found it had a "Large Evaporative Emissions Leak". It also displayed a code indicating the battery had been disconnected recently. For those who don't know, on cars 1995 and newer, a car displaying a code like this won't pass emissions. I'd just purchased a car that wouldn't pass emissions, and from all appearances, someone had disconnected the battery to make the car "forget" the code temporarily.
This started my descent into used car hell.
In addition to this code, I found during an oil change that the transmission pan was leaking. When it rained, I found the trunk would get wet. When on the freeway, while climbing hills, the entire front end would shudder back and forth. On cold mornings, there was a rumble from the engine until it warmed up, and I discovered the idler pulleys and belts were worn out.
At one point the salesman from Becker e-mailed me asking if I was "satisfied". I related my problem with the mysterious code and the evidence the code had been reset by pulling the battery. He said it was "probably a gasket or something" and I never heard from him again.
The final straw came when I went to change one of the turn signal bulbs, which on the car I purchased requires removing the headlight. Pulling the headlight revealed improperly repaired crash damage.
So now I had a car that wouldn't pass emissions without expensive repairs (I'd already tried the "cheap fixes by this point, now I'm to the point that much more expensive diagnostics are needed), with bad belts and bad pulleys, that shimmied on the freeway while at speed and now on top of all that was in a collision and was repaired by someone who didn't know what they were doing, and which was missing important crash mitigation components.
I e-mailed the Customer Service manager at Becker Buick, and never received a reply. I finally wrote them a very polite letter, printed out a copy of the photo of the crash damage, and mailed it to them.
A few days later I received the below e-mail from the President of Becker Buick GMC, Wayne Cornwell, which is below:
----------------
Mr. *redacted*,
I'm sorry you are upset with Becker. It's a matter of opinion on whether the problems you are experiencing are minor or major, in my opinion they are minor. There are many, many reasons a check engine light could come on and most of the time it's a minor issue. As for un-hooking the battery to clear the codes, please keep in mind it was probably the previous owner that did that prior to trading it in, we see it often! Mr. *redacted* when we sell an older vehicle we make it quite clear that the vehicle is being sold AS-IS and that the buyer is responsible for any and all future repairs. I have sent an attachment of the purchase order that you signed stating just that. Again I'm sorry that you are not happy with us, but we made it clear that we would not stand behind the vehicle!
Thank-You
Wayne Cornwell
President
Becker Buick GMC
--------------
Mr. Cornwell appears to think my issues are "minor". I suppose they are minor to someone who isn't in possession of a car that will require repairs likely exceeding 25% of the purchase price, has hidden unrepaired crash damage, and which won't even pass Washington State emissions. Mr. Cornwell admits freely that they "often" see customers trade in vehicles after resetting the car's computer to make the check engine light go out, yet they don't bother checking for this when preparing a trade-in for resale? How many other people have driven off the Becker lot with a ticking time bomb under their hood?
In my opinion, this vehicle was likely run through their car wash, vacuumed out and dropped on their used car lot with no other attempts to ascertain its condition or repair any defects.
Worse, this company (despite their marketing to the contrary), does not practice "excellent customer service", and I suspect the reason why they don't care about their customers is because their President doesn't care.
This is an excellent way to make a quick profit, but an unconscionably poor way to treat your customers.
It's possible my experience is unusual, but I doubt it. Beware if you choose to purchase a vehicle from Becker Buick GMC. Otherwise you'll end up like me, just another sucker they made a quick and easy profit on. read more
