Terrible experience. I've never gone to a used car dealer before, always bought privately, and I'll go back to buying privately next time as I've never had problems with individuals.
The initial visit:
- The only thing the sales person asked me was what colors I didn't like. The only female staff I saw were the receptionists (including all subsequent visits).
- Staff wander around aimlessly in casual clothes, drinking slurpees, sitting at the sales desks when they aren't in use. My drivers license photocopy was left visible on the sales desk while we went for the test drive and two of these staff were sitting there when we got back.
- The sales person left me about 6 times to go get different forms for me to sign, though I hadn't agreed to buy the car yet and pointed this out, he said it didn't mean anything.
- HIs manager said I couldn't have an outside inspection. After talking to my mechanic on the phone I said I was going to walk on that. The manager agreed to the outside inspection.
- The sales person 'couldn't' tell me what the 'fees' were, what they were for or how much. After signing all those papers he said he'd get me into see 'finance' he just needed a $500 deposit. I almost walked out again, they waived the deposit.
- Agreed to their price minus $400 (the fees were $700, wish I'd thought to point out their folder says 'no extra fees') conditional on inspection.
The inspection:
- Bunch of cosmetic stuff that's not too unusual for an older car
- Had been broken into before - rust and dents around the doors and trunk because of being pried open
- Two tires were all seasons, two winter (?!?!? I'd been told it had new all seasons)
- Broken windshield wiper blade
- And the big one, the front struts were leaking badly.
The renegotiation:
- This time I'm talking to the manager (creepy guy). His take on the inspection "the car is mechanically sound". I point out that I'm driving a broken car that's mechanically sound, if I wanted a broken car I'd keep mine. Didn't think to pull out their in house inspection which said the struts were fine.
- He agrees to fix the wiper blade and the struts no cost but won't budge on tires. I agree, should have fought harder.
- Have to bring car in for appointment with service another day.
Service:
- Service is open the exact hours I'm asleep (8:30am-4:30pm, I work nights) so I have to stay up to make the appointment.
- I take it in meaning I'm up till about 10am. They give me a loaner. They won't leave the keys with sales who are open later so my mom has to pick it up for me before they close.
- At home that night we are moving around the cars and notice my headlight is out.
- I send a polite email to the company head office (because service has no email) asking what happened.
- Service calls me asking me to call, but I'm asleep. I stay up the next day to call.
- She talked to her service guys and it's possible they bumped something, bring it in. I say I'll take it to my mechanic and get them to hook it back up, faster and easier.
- I go to my mechanic thinking I'll be there 5 minutes. 25 minutes later he comes out with my headlight bulb which is a blackened mess. The bulb was half out of the socket and melted the housing. The mechanic made no definitive claims but said:
1. Bulbs lock into place and don't accidentally fall out
2. The bulb creates intense heat so it would have been dead and melted the housing very fast after it came out of the socket
3. The struts they were repairing are no where near the headlight
- My mechanics put in a temp bulb.
- I call Go Auto, I get transferred to the service manager who is totally calm and says probably one of his guys messed up somehow, bring it in and they'll fix it.
- So once again I'm up to take it in for service and once again my mother has to go pick it up. I receive no compensation for this, I never got an explanation of how this could have happened, and no one even said they were sorry.
The next week:
- I take it to my mechanic to get new tires.
- When I come to get it they tell me they had to replace the battery because it wasn't holding a charge. They paid for it because they should have caught that on inspection and didn't, this is one more thing that was wrong when I bought it.
Follow up:
- This was in October. I consider it to be in bad faith that Go Auto signed a pre-purchase inspection saying all was well, specifically checking the boxes for the struts and battery saying they were good. I put in a complaint to AMVIC not knowing what they'd do or say about it.
- AMVIC just got back to me. According to them because I caught the issues and any issues I complained about were fixed by the dealer they can't do anything. So it's completely alright for Go Auto to lie about the condition of a car as long as they get caught in the act.
Heavily edited due to character restriction. read more