I bought a 1987 Honda Accord on March 5th from Jerry's Auto Sales in Bon Aqua, TN. The car had 139,000 miles on the odometer. I test drove the car about three miles down the road because the owner, Jerry Barnes, insisted on riding with me. That was my first mistake.
I bought the car without having a mechanic look at it, because I am new to the area, and quite frankly thought that I would get ripped off. I also somewhat trusted the man because he runs a collision center also, and has mechanically inclined employees. I asked several times if it was a good car and if the previous owner had any complaints. Mr. Barnes replied many times that the owners loved the car and drove it to Florida several times. They were only selling it because they had too many vehicles to move to Florida.
I had to buy a car, in order to look for employment (I'm a single mother, that's why buying a car was so important) so my mother came and looked at the car with me, and that day a $1589.00 check was wrote out to Jerry's Auto Sales for an "As Is" car.
I live six miles from the dealership and approximately three miles away, the car stalled. Another half mile down the road, it died again. It continued to do this constantly on the way home.
When I arrived home, there was steam pouring out of the front grill. My father came out and started fiddling with it. He told me to go to town and buy some fuel injector cleaner. After I purchased this, I arrived home, then took the car four miles down the road to a gas station and filled it up and put the fuel injector / carburetor cleaner in my car. The car died constantly on the way there and back. (On a busy highway at that)
The next day I drove into town about 11 miles away. The car died atleast 20 times. An acquaintance of Mr. Barnes called him and explained my situation. He agreed to take the car back and repair the problem. The next day I got the car back, got it the same three miles down the road and it died from there until my house.
I arrived at my house, and called Mr. Barnes. He agreed to take the car back the next Monday. He couldn't figure out what was wrong so he sent it to his mechanic. I finally got the car back on March 19th. Since that day, the car has been driven for maybe three days and has sat in my driveway the rest of the time.
I do believe that Mr. Barnes took the car back and fixed the obvious problem (dying) to placate me so that he wouldn't look bad to his acquaintance. The car obviously has problems. A friend ran a title search history on it and came up with 7 histories, 8 including mine. Also, after buying the car and having these problems, Mr. Barnes volunteered theinformation that the car died on him the one time that he drove it, so they repaired a vacuum line and never drove it again until I test drove the car. (Also, I pulled over where he told me to... It made me nervous that he was in there)
I ran into Mr. Barnes at the grocery store, he looked up shocked to see me, asked about the car (b/c he couldn't get away without seeming rude) and when I told him all of the problems, he never offered to take a look at it. Everything that is wrong with the car, was wrong when I bought it. I have not got to drive this thing.
My father has attempted to fix the thermostat problem, but he is not a mechanic. So the car will sit there, because I'm too afraid to drive it. I realize that by fixing the main problem Mr. Barnes did more than most would, but I have dealt with many dealers in my quest for a good, used vehicle that said that they would rather not sell me a car than to sell me a car that is unsafe and has mechanical problems.
As a result of this ordeal, I have been contacting my State Representative and Senator about amending Tennessee State Lemon Laws. Senator Doug Jackson emailed me back and told me that he will be seeking amendments to the law. I also emailed all of the local news stations in Nashville. None of the consumer reporters seem to be interested. I do not feel that enough has been done to expose this man for what he is. There are several people that I have spoken to since that say that the man is a crook and will rip you off in a heartbeat. I would like others to know this. The moral of this story is, if you are a 21 year old girl that an old car salesman is going to take advantage of you and Tennessee State Law does now cover the fifteen year old car that was the only thing that you could afford.
0 comments