Car Nation LLC Dishonest, not abiding by the 60-day warranty on the car Middletown, Connecticut

My husband and I wanted to buy a used car for his use. He had seen a 2005 Saturn Ion at Car Nation and test-drove the car. He examined the car and it seemed to be in good shape. He decided to buy it. We got financing through them and bought the car.

The contract specified that we had 60 days to get problems fixed. In addition, they guaranteed us that with the purchase of the car, we would get a free detailing.  The day we picked up the car, however, we were told that they could not do the detailing and promised to do it later. We figured we would bring the car back in a week for them to do it. The guy we had been dealing with was called Hector. Hector told us emphatically that if anything was wrong with the car to tell him immediately and he would take care of it.

We bought the car on 11/08/2012.  Hector told us when we got the car that he spent a lot on the car because he put on brand new tires.  We had looked at the tires previously and they did not seem so bad that we would have asked for new ones, but we went along with it.

Not long after that, maybe a week later, my husband noticed a weird noise coming from the right front end of the car. We also found out that the right passenger mirror could not be remotely moved.  We decided that we would bring the car back and have them repair  these problems and do the detailing. We called several times specifically Hector, left messages; we never got an answer. So we had to stop by the place to talk to them directly, figuring that they were very busy.

Car Nation has a very small office and the entire staff is in it. There were 3 guys including the manager and Hector when we were there. They made us wait 30 minutes before we could talk to Hector. His attitude already had started to change to a negative attitude when we told him we wanted to leave the car to have him fix the mirror, detail the car, and figure out what that noise coming from the right front end was.

A professional car dealer puts in writing any work done on a vehicle as requested by the customer: they did no such thing. We left the car for a couple of days. We went back to get the car and Hector told us they could not find anything wrong with the car, gave us back the key, and was pushing us out the door. The detailing had not been done, the mirror was not fixed, and the noise was still audible.

My husband and I gave them the benefit of the doubt, thinking they "forgot" to do all that we asked. We called a couple of weeks later because we had been busy and again we had a tough time getting in touch with them. Again, we went to Car Nation and were made to wait at least 30 minutes. We were bringing  the car back and we told them that it was not fixed and not detailed. Hector gave us a vague explanation that he had no one to detail the car, but did not say why the car had not been fixed or looked at. There was nothing in writing, no record of them doing any work on the car and if they had written anything, we did not see anything.

The car was left there for a couple of days again. We got it back and the same thing happened: the car was not detailed, the mirror was not fixed, except the noise from the front end was no longer audible. We asked them to tell us what they did to the car, but we only got vague explanations and still nothing in writing. We tried to call them to make another appointment, but no answer from them.

At this point, we had 30 days left on the warranty.  We were leaving for a whole week at the end of December and my husband decided to leave them the car for the whole week, figuring that they would have enough time to repair the car.

After leaving the car for one week with them, we took the car back from the lot as they were closed on that day.  Again, we found the car was not detailed and the mirror was still broken.  We had 2 weeks left until the end of the warranty. It was obvious now that they were giving us the run around and that they avoided calling us back because they were hoping we would go away.

Afterwards, I personally called Hector and finally got him on the phone. The first thing he did was to put me on hold for 15 minutes and I could hear people in the background, including Hector having a casual conversation with another guy from the office, something about him taking his car to do an errand or something.  

While I was waiting on the phone, I got the distinct impression he wanted to make me hold long enough so that I would end up hanging up the phone, tired of waiting. I hung up and called again and got another guy on the phone.  I tried to explain what the problem was since he told me Hector was too busy to come to the phone. I was complaining about the fact that the car had not been taken care of and that they needed to take care of the car immediately. He cut me off rudely and started yelling at me on the phone. 

I called again and Hector answered the phone. At this point, I was not going to let him off the hook. I told him that ever since they got their money for the purchase of the car, it seemed they did not care about fixing it and I told him that putting me on hold was not going to make me go away. He started yelling at me, telling me that he could put me on hold for as long as he deemed necessary and that he was busy with customers. I retorted that I am a customer too and I have given them plenty of opportunities to abide by the warranty.  I told him that if they were not willing to fix the car, I was going to complain to the BBB, complain to the CT DMV, and talk to a lawyer about our rights.  In his anger, he inadvertently admitted that Car Nation was done with the Ion and that they did not want to spend any more money on the car.

Frustrated, my husband decided to bring the car back, have them detail it, and let go of the mirror repair. Hector had told him that there was no motor connected to the right passenger mirror. Consequently, if we wanted him to repair it, we needed to pay him $60.00. My husband refused to pay anything.

In the meantime, I had complained to the BBB and consulted a lawyer. Regarding the detailing they did, they barely vacuumed the car and did nothing else. 

If you go to this dealer, you can very well become the victim of a dishonest car dealer that will lie and give you the run around so that they don't have to repair your vehicle.  

At this point, I am waiting for their response through the BBB. In my opinion, they need to give an explanation to the BBB about the mirror because I doubt very much that there is no motor connected to the mirror.  The motor is there and probably fried; Car Nation does not want to spend any money on the car.