I was working with Nick from Hellas Auto to buy a silver 2006 BMW 330i sedan. I explained to him that I was an out of state buyer and would be flying in from Michigan to purchase the car. Therefore, before I made the flight arrangements I wanted to agree on a price and wanted to make sure the vehicle was in the condition I was looking for. I explained to him that I was looking for a mint condition BMW and did not want one with any paint work, door dings, scratches, etc. Nick assured me that the only scratch on the car was a slight scratch on the Passenger side mirror. But other than that the car was perfect...
After flying to Chicago, and arriving at Hellas Auto. I was a bit surprised to discover that it was your typical run down, bad neighborhood, small "car" lot. After looking over the car my blood began to boil! Not only had the car been painted in the front, Nick tried to hide the fact that he knew about it and was surprised that I was able to tell... Excuse me!?!? Furthermore there was "bondo" on the front bumper, and the passenger side front quarter panel had a kink in it from what was apparently a front end collision, but it had not been repaired. On the passenger side lower fascia, the entire lower portion and bottom was badly scraped with several scrapes 1/2" thick by no less than 10" in length. It looked as though they had been repaired with a paint brush... Just a nasty do it yourself shoddy repair attempt. There was also a large scrape about 6 inches long and a 1/3" thick along the rear lower quarter panel.
What happened to the "mint" car that Nick told me about? His reply about the kink in the front quarter panel was "you can see that?" When I pointed out the other flaws to Nick, he responded "What do you expect, it's a used car?" What I expected was a mint condition car with only one scratch on the passenger side mirror, with no paint work and definitely no bondo!
Not exactly what I would call a mint car, with no paint work... And only a single small scratch on the passenger side mirror... Oh, that was there too, but very minor in comparison to the other damage.
Base on my experience with Hellas, I can only conclude that Nick, and the staff at Hellas either doesn't know a thing about the used car business and how to properly assess the condition of a vehicle, or they are only interested in misleading the public by deliberately misrepresenting their vehicles.
To make matters worse, when I asked them to give me a ride back to the Airport, the responded that I should take a cab!
Buyer be ware! Never again Nick. I should have known better than to try and trust someone from a small independent car lot.
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