Was shopping for ~2 y.O. Suv. Salesperson Dan brought up 07 Outlander and 08 Mazda CX-7 to look at and testdrive. Testdrove both, and they both seemed to be okay deals. When I asked about accident history, he was sure that Mitsubishi has not been in accidents, and was not sure about Mazda (yeah, I believe it now!). I finally decided to go with Mazda, but when I asked for carfax, of course it turned out that Mazda was in an accident (ran off the road, front of the car damaged). I should have walked away at that point, but being tired of car shopping, I decided to switch to Outlander. It had rental on carfax, but that was not a showstopper for me.
We agreed on the price. I knew I was overpaying a little, but I figured buying a car from official Mitsubishi dealer was worth overpaying. That was my second mistake. The car needed some work (minor scratches here and there, broken armrest, needed new tires). Dan assured me there will be no cosmetic issues. I took his word and did not think I needed to report every little problem.
Ill skip what it took me to get the car (they were taking their time with work and registering). Long story short, when I finally came to pick up the car, it was missing a fog light cover and another cover on the bumper, both on the driver side. Of course, it turned out that there was no way to get those covers without replacing the whole bumper. They acted surprised (very good acting), but refused to do anything about it since I did not put it on the to-do list in writing and this was not a safety issue. I admit I did not notice this problem initially, but like I said, I did not expect that official dealer would be selling a 2 year old car with two major holes on the bumper.
Lesson learnt: do not trust what these people tell you, doublecheck everything and put it in writing. Or, even better, shop elsewhere.
0 comments