I recently wanted to purchase a used car as a second vehicle for my family of 7. I decided to look on craigslist for a cheap but reliable car since I didn't want to go to a big dealership and pay over $10,000 for one.
I found West Auto Sales in Akron, Ohio, who advertised that they had over 30 vehicles in stock, one of which was a 4-door sedan that interested me. I traveled 50 miles, which took over an hour, to this car lot because of the good prices they were advertising.
When I got there I was disappointed to see a small parking lot that had not more than 5 cars, most of which looked like they were grossly overpriced. There were only 3 vehicles in my price range, a gold 1998 Mercury Mystique, a huge 70s van that could hold 20, and a white 1997 Mercury Mystique. I needed a car that day, so I was forced to look at what he had because I didn't know of any other places that had the same prices.
I should've known that the price reflected the quality.
I test drove the white Mystique first and thought that it was a good car for the price. The interior was nice, there was nothing wrong with the exterior and it ran really well for the quick test drive we took.
We went through the title process and I paid $1500 out the door for it.
I started to drive home and got on the interstate and found that suddenly the car wouldn't go up to speed. I couldn't even merge into the traffic because the car couldn't go over 40 mph. I almost got rear-ended because I couldn't keep speed. The car started sputtering and shaking and wouldn't go in gear. I turned around and started to go back to the lot. It took me almost an hour to drive back to the lot after it had taken me only 10 minutes to get onto the interstate from it.
When I got there the dealer told me that nothing was wrong with the car. He didn't believe me when I said that something was wrong with it. He had the nerve to even blame ME for it, stating that I probably didn't know how to drive so I must have wrecked it.
We took it out for a test drive and it started jerking again... I told him it sounded like the transmission was slipping. He looked at me like I shouldn't know anything about cars and tried to make some excuse about it.
I told him I wanted my money back because he sold me a Lemon and he refused to give me anything back. He told me I bought it AS IS so it was my problem now. I called people about the lemon laws and even called the police. After that the best he said he could do was to trade it out.
I ended up with the gold 98 Mystique, which I didn't want, but had to get because he wouldn't give my money back, I wasn't going to get the van, and my white car no longer ran.
Since I got it home I've had nothing but trouble with it. That night the fuel line started leaking, which I've had to get replaced. I've had trouble with a number of things so far. I've only had the car for 2 months and I've put more money into it than I used to purchase it.
West Auto Sales KNOWINGLY sold me a lemon. He mentioned he got in trouble with the police often and get tickets all the time for his cars. He refused to give me my money back on my purchase and falsely advertised cars he didn't have in stock on his website.
He is a shady businessman and a crook. I hope the police finally catch on to what he is doing!
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