I'm a college student who had finally saved up enough money to buy a car. I was so excited for my purchase, however I didn't have help in finding a car as I was living in Miami without any family. I shopped around for awhile looking to spend around $5,000 or so. A lot of places and cars in Miami appeared to be shady to me, so i broadened my search to include Ft. Lauderdale. I found a 2003 Hyundai Sonata for a little over $4,000. I immediately wanted to see it, and I went out there. The car appeared to look clean, and I checked all the things that internet check lists and carfax said to check. I thought I was being a good consumer. I decided i wanted to purchase the car. Their cars are sold AS IS, and that's a major red flag, but who was I to judge? It was going to be my first car and I was excited, and I also had the sense of "trust" in these two nice guys I dealt with. One of the guy was in his late 50s named Steve, but I can't recall the other buffoon's name who was in his 40s. So I purchased the car and drove off the lot. Now I live in downtown Miami which is about 40 minutes from Ft. Lauderdale, and the car drove perfectly fine, smooth and quiet. I then take a stop for some food with my friend. When we left I go to start the car and it starts but it hesitates, so I give it gas and it works just fine. Then I go out in the car about an hour later, and I'm driving on the FL 836 (Speed limit 55mph) up the incline right before the NW 27th Ave. Exit and the lights inside the car start going crazy and the car stalls on me, so I quickly try to get over on this incline onto the shoulder, almost hitting a cop on the way. I make it over and the car will no longer start for me. Now I'm stuck on an incline on the 836 with Miami drivers flying by me and my car is shaking as they pass by, a very scary feeling. I call Kool Kars and Steve gives me a generic explanation about how the car is sold AS IS but offers me one of their extended warranty plans. Then I have my father call and my dad was given the same exact response. Now a decent car dealership would've helped even though it is sold AS IS because they don't want their reputation damaged. This place wouldn't budge in helped or anything. I had the car towed back to my apartment, and later taken to be fixed. After all the damages, the repairs costs me a little over $1,100 dollars to fix. We call Kool Kars and tell them and they don't have a care in the world that I could have been seriously injured on a busy highway or to how they screwed a 19 year old college student out of thousands of dollars. On top of that when my father went to register the car back in NY where I am from, it turns out Kool Kars charged me NY tax that wasn't enough first of all, so my dad had to pay more. Second off they shouldn't have charged tax at all, and didn't even send that into the state. They just took the "tax" money and profited with it. We wrote letter to the BBB, state attorney general, and so forth, all with responses that they can't help me. I find it hard to believe that something couldn't have been done to further help me with this problem, however I don't want to see anyone else get screwed over, or to see Kool Kars make business ever again.
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