We were going to buy our dream car. A new Volkswagon Jetta with the works, leather interior, sun roof, you name it. However, after looking at cars on the dealer's lot, we found a used 1998 Passat (bigger and better then the Jetta) that was in our price range. Since we recently had a good experience with a used car, we jumped at this deal.
However, when we were on a test drive of the car, the oil light came on. The sales person told us he would have this checked out before we bought the car to make sure there wasn't anything wrong. When we went inside to "look at the numbers" the sales guy brought the car over to the service department where their mechanics assured him there was nothing wrong with the car (their special VW auto computers told them that) and it was drivable without problems. The sales guy said we could come back next week and their service guys would call vw and see why the light was coming on - probably a faulty wire? So, we signed the papers and bought the car with an out the door price of a little more than $20,000.
When I drove the car home from the dealer, it started to make a real lound knocking noise.By the time I got home, it sounded really bad, so I turned around and went back to the dealer. They apoligized and said after they hooked up the car back to their computers (the same ones they hooked it up to an hour ago) it said there was a bad oil pump! They talked me into leaving the car there to be fixed and gave me a loaner car.
4 days later, the car was fixed and I picked it up. Everything was fine except about a week later, it started making another awful noise. I again took it back to the dealer and told them the car had serious problems and I was worried that those problems might continue and I was thinking about just asking for my money back.
It turns out that when the oil pump went out, it damaged other parts of the engine and the cam chain adjuster had to be replaced. I told the sales manager that it was unacceptable that I had now owned the car for 3 weeks and 2 of those weeks were spent in the service shop. I told him I either wanted my money back, our a new deal on a different car. He told me that they could definintely work with me on a new car option and I should go onto the lot and pick out a new car.
After test driving a couple more cars, I decided it would just be best to buy a new 2001 Passat. The extra cost would be worth it in peace of mind. I went in to do the "numbers" and was offered only 14,500 on the trade in (remember, I just bought the car for 20,000 three weeks ago), and my payments would go from $250 per month to over $550 per month. This deal would result in losing ludicrious numbers of dollars so I stormed out of the dealship.
The next day, I decided that the only person who could help me would be the owner of the dealship. Surely the owner would have an interest in keeping customers happy. I called him up early and explained my problem. He called me back later that day and said that he could get me in the new passat with my trade in for $438 per month. I told him I'd think about it and be in later that day. After discussing with my wife, decided that we'd lose money, but we'd be happier with the new car. We packed up our one year old daughter and went back to the dealer only to find out that the deal never existed. The owner of the dealership was mysteriously unreachable and the price was back to $550. We stormed out of the dealship once again.
Later that day, I got a hold of the owner who again told me that the $438 deal was there and that if we came back in, we could get the new car. As it was already late, I told him I would be in the next day to sign the papers. Ten minutes later, I was called back by another person at the dealship who told me that my wife had a better credit rating than I did and she would be the only person who could sign the papers. Even though my wife earns about $120 per month compared to my much larger computer engineering salary she was more qualified to buy the car - whatever, I was getting tired of the run around. Before hanging up, I asked the sales guy if he could guarentee me that the $438 deal would be there the next day. He assured me that it would.
The next morning, my wife made special arrangements with her work and went in to sign the papers. However, the deal had again been changed.instead of the $438 we had been promised, it was now $441 per month. Although it was only 3 bucks per month (which over 6 years would be $216), we felt the old bait and switch had gone too far and once again stormed out of the dealership. The price actually didn't matter anyway because she was told that I had to be there to sign the papers too, even though they made a special phone call the day before to tell me I couldn't be there.
So, now were left with a car that I'm sure is going to break down again and don't know what else to do.
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