DriveTime Car Sales sold us a 2003 Kia Rio Cinco in May. October 6 of the vehicle "broke down". We later discovered that the timing belt broke, a problem your website addresses against Kia in general. The car had just shy of 66,000 miles on it and we were the second owners, removing the possibility of having the needed engine replacement done under Kia's 60,000 mile Bumper to Bumper Warranty, and being second owners, we could not use the 100,000 mile Powertrain Warranty which also would have covered this.
Having limited resources to pay for the repairs, we turned back to DriveTime, who told us that they have the DT Repair Program for situations like this. Any repairs exceeding $1000 could be paid out by DT Repair to their authorized repair facility, and we would only need to put half down and pay off the rest within a 4 month period. When we transferred the vehicle to the "authorized repair facility" on October 8, by the next morning DT Repair was able to tell us based on the auto shop's findings, that our car would cost $1640 to repair.
We paid the required downpayment on October 20, and work was authorized to start. A few days later, the shop informed DT Repair that they had misdiagnosed the problem, and NOW were willing to say the car needed a new engine. The vehicle was returned to us with an engine with 30,000 miles on it— that's what DT Repair told us anyway—on November 15.
On the morning of November 17, I was forced to take the vehicle to my family mechanic because it was already having some new problems. That day, my mechanic charged me only $70 plus tax; a $50 computer diagnostic because the "Check Engine" light was on, and $20 in labor to remove the attached fuel injectors which were faulty and re-install my old fuel injectors, and also to replace two nuts which were not necessarily defective but instead weren't there at all, zip-tie the ignition coil connector, and to tighten the transmission bolt which was so loose that he was able to turn it with his bare hands. He said had I gone on the freeway even just 5 miles, the transmission would have fallen out and I would have been in for another repair near the neighborhood of the $2935 we currently owe DT Repair for the defective repair job that was just finished.
If this knowledge wasn't bad enough, we have a friend who works for DriveTime who knows the reputation of this particular auto shop to make it so you have alot more problems than you ever thought possible after they get done with your car. And of course, our family mechanic was also more than willing to tell me that the $3000 job I just had done would have cost me about $2000 from him, or any other decent mechanic. He also emphasized the fact that he has several customers besides me who have made him their personal mechanic after DriveTime's authorized repair shop has screwed up their cars so bad they didn't know which end was up!
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