I bought a 91 Saab 900 convertible on ebay July 18. Picked it up August 16. Seller swore up and down that over $12k of repairs/restoration had been done to the car in the past two years and encouraged me to call his mechanic and discuss the car. I called Trusted Choice and talked to Leona, the owner, who said the "car is in the top percentile of used Saabs (she's) ever seen and that (her) shop works on a lot of Saabs." After asking a number of questions and seeing copies of receipts of the supposed work I felt comfortable that I had found a great deal.
Upon arriving at the shop in Las Vegas to pick up the car Leona and her mechanic, Shawn, went into great detail about all the work they'd done on the Saab and what an amazing car it was. "Mechanically sound, " "meticulously maintained, " "no rust anywhere" etc etc.
I drove the car back to Santa Fe, NM, where I live and took it to my mechanic thinking he'd do a basic check on my new car and an oil change. What he presented was a laundry list of problems... including the need to replace virtually everything Trusted Choice had claimed to do in the stack of receipts totalling $6,423.95.
$5,344.33 of this pile of receipts is supposed to be covered by a 12k mile/12 mo warranty. The problem with this? Why on earth would I return the car to have warranty work done by the same incompetent, dishonest people who messed up or just plain didn't do the work to begin with? My mechanic here, a Saab certified guy who's done amazing work on my three previous Saabs, says he's never seen shoddier work with more useless "used" (read: worn out aftermarket parts) in his life. He said it would be one thing if a good mechanic who wasn't a Saab specialist had done the work, but that it's another thing entirely for whomever claims to have done this work to call himself a "mechanic" at all.
The seller, whom I've reported to ebay, says he's not responsible for poor work despite his claims in his ebay listing to "stand behind everything" he claimed mechanically and that he "wouldn't sell the car if there was anything wrong." He also says that I'm just having buyer's remorse. Wrong. I'm outraged that he and the mechanic and owner at Trusted Choice Auto Care (could the name be any more ironic?!) worked so hard to be so dishonest.
If anyone has suggestions for ways to continue to pursue this, please post them. I am going to take a huge bath on this car financially. I paid $4195 for it, immediately put on brand new tires to the tune of $500, titled it in NM, and have put in another $300 at my mechanic's insistence. I have to sell it because I have neither the time nor the money to restore it to the condition it was SUPPOSED to be in when I bought it.
Trusted Choice Auto Care in Las Vegas, NV, is a nightmare. Beware! Www.trustedchoiceautocare.net
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