I purchased a car from J-Linn motors in Clearwater, FL on Largo drive. The advertisement for the vehicle (2002 Mitsubishi Eclipse) indicated that it was in excellent condition. The CarFax was clean, so I visited the dealer. I drove the car. The ride seemed ok, and only minor wear and tear was evident. My wife asked the salesman (Rick) if there was anything wrong with the vehicle to which he replied, "if there were something wrong, it would be in the back"... indicating the "junk" cars in the back of the dealers lot. The day I purchased the vehicle I brought it to a Mitsubishi dealership in Orlando, FL And asked them to figure out why the vehicle idled rough. They went further and inspected the entire vehicle. They came back with over $2000 of needed repairs to simply make the vehicle roadworthy. Since I know a group of people that race this particular model, I also had them take a look at it. Beyond the things that the dealership noted, the impression by the mechanics was that in spite of the clean carfax, the car had been seriously wrecked.in addition, most of the parts in the engine bay had yellow paint stripes, indicating that the parts had come from a salvage yard. Within the past 4 weeks, I have replaced the brakes and rotors, the air-conditioning compressor and clutch, all belts, valve cover gasket, spark plugs and coils, and have scheduled the vehicle with a local body shop to determine how much damage was done in the unreported wreck. To put it mildly, it appears that J-Linn motors pieced the vehicle together and sold it as if it were just your average 1 or 2 owner family car. I suspect that they found a vehicle that had been trashed but not reported, patched it together, band aided the obvious stuff, and sold it as an "excellent vehicle". When I called the salesman, within two hours of leaving the J-Linn dealership, regarding the condition of the vehicle, he accused me of damaging the parts in my ride from Tampa to Orlando (100 miles away).
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