I bought a 1994 Toyota 4 Runner from this dealership. Test drove it around town and it all seemed fine. Agreed to buy it for the ridiculously high price of 5000 dollars for a 15 year old car with 165K miles on it. But my credit was bad and they agreed to finance so I gave them 1K down and agreed to 204 per month.
The following day I drove down the mountain to get groceries. We live at an elevation of about 5000 feet so it's a pretty steep drive comming back up home. Truck overheats halfway up. Barely make it home with boiling coolant in the radiator. Took it to the dealership and owner agreed to replace radiator. He had the cheapest possible radiator put in. Car continued to overheat. I returned to the dealership several times and the owner simply couldn't offer any solution other than waiving my payments till I could get the issue fixed.
Shortly afterwards the transmission started acting up so I took it to a shop and 3K later I had the transmission rebuilt thinking it might help with the overheating issue. No dice. Started replacing everything I could think of. Found out the dealership had REMOVED the thermostat in order to get the truck to drive o.K. On level ground. With the thermostat it would overheat within minutes. It got so bad it actually destroyed the cheap radiator installed by the dealership. I replaced it with a heavy duty radiatior and thought it would solve the issue but that's when the transmission failed again.
I called the owner and tried to figure out a solution but he was a complete prick and didn't want to work with me anymore and said that if I felt ripped off I should take him to court. I thought about it but because all the junk he sells is sold AS IS then I would never win. I told him I would never pay him a dime for the vehicle and if he wants it back he would have to come get it because I was not going to repair anything anymore.
I recently found out from the mechanic that works there that the owner was well aware of my overheating issues and knew the motor was shot and needed a serious overhaul yet he said NOTHING to me and let me spend 3K rebuilding the transmission. Worse yet he knew the issued the truck had BEFORE I even bought the truck.
This guy... The owner... Is a real crooked SOB that buys cars from auctions and does not test them at all for anything. He figures as long as the cars make it to the dealership from the auction then they are o.K.
I know I'm not alone.
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