Toyota of San Diego Toyota of San Diego Sold Me A Lemon and they are Refusing to Take the Car Back. Internet

Please read Donna's response to your original post. Rest assured I am exploring every avenue possible. Just humor me for a moment, Marc. What is it that you do for a living? Any possible connection to Toyota of San Diego? How can you be so sure that they didn't purposefully sell me this car, unless of course you know someone who works there.

I mean I am a trusting person myself, which is what got me in to this position in the first place. But you are so sure that this dealership didn't know about the condition of the car. Is that your opinion of all car dealerships or just simply Toyota of San Diego?

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt because you were so nice in your original comment. Please I want you to prepare yourself for what I am about to show you because honestly I was shocked too:

http://www.ripoffreport.com/Search/toyota.aspx

 If you have followed the link, then you should know that when you search the ripoff report database under the keyword "Toyota", there actually, "Approximately 1910 Reports Found". (You can't deny that, but your welcome to correct my grammar. I'm pretty sure I just used a run-on-sentence or a comma splice. I don't much care for emoticons, so please note that I did it for the purpose of translating tone of voice.)

I hope you are having a great day. All of my best. 

Hi Mark,

I certainly understand that all vehicles eventually break. However, I do not expect a susposedly reputable dealer to sell my daughter a used vehicle, represent it as a vehicle in Excellent working order and end up with the vehicle needing a new engine, new catalytic converter and other repairs after only 5 K miles.  Keep in mind that this vehicle was in the shop more than 90 days having various repairs during the first 12 months of ownership and the first oil change the mechanic told Brieanna that the engine was in bad need of a flush because the oil was 'sludgy'.  Really, Excellent condition?  I think not.  

Of course you are welcome to side with whoever you want, but given the circumstances of this vehicle and the evidence I've seen regarding all the repair orders, someone at Toyota of San Diego knew this car was a pile of junk, 'duct taped' together so to speak, and was happy to find a victim to dump it on.  

Until we enact stronger laws to deal with this type of deceptive, predatory practice, unscrupulous dealers will continue to behave in this manner and then sit back and point the crooked finger at their trusting victims.  I say shame on them and shame on those who support and encourage the behavior.

Brianna and her mom:

I can honestly say I feel bad for you and the situation.  However, at the end of the day, a vehicle is a machine and unfortunatley, they do breakdown.  I have to lean with Ken on this one too....how old was the vehicle and with how many miles?  I don't care what type of car it is, at the end of the day, there are always risks with buying used....I never buy new...always used and although I've been lucky, others aren't so lucky.  I do wish you the best and yes, you can go through other avenues to try and bend the dealer to help more than they are, but they didn't purposely sell you a bad vehicle.  57,000 dealers nationwide sell machines designed to break...eventually.  They're not all bad people, just selling a commodity that everyone needs and selling a product that will fail....eventually.  I wish you the best.

all of the Investigative Reporters at all of your Local TV News stations in San Diego.

Maybe one of them will contact you and do a story on TV about what happened, so other potential customers are aware. You and your daughter can also expose the dealership on websites like Twitter and Facebook. Let everyone know what happened and direct them to your Ripoff Report. 

Just have everybody come to Ripoff Report and type in 928389 and read your daughter's Ripoff Report.

Good luck to you and your daughter.

Hi "Ken" from Toyota of San Diego,


I hope you are doing well and I have found you in good spirits. It's a little hurtful that it sounds like you are saying I had this coming. Let's pretend for a moment that I was irresponsible with my choice of trusting a brand like Toyota, which assured me that the car was in excellent working condition and went so far as to present me with a list of "repairs". I mean that is what you are implying right, that even though granted it was a used older vehicle, I shouldn't trust Toyota of San Diego's Service Specialist when they tell me, "No major mechanical problems, miss." I guess it must have been me and all of my irresponsibility because even with regular maintenance, the car needed a completely new engine after the first three months. However lets put that aside for a moment, let's pretend like it's completely normal to have your dealership instruct me to drive the car back to your dealership even though I felt it was unsafe and to have a member of your sales team actually say "well you've been driving it this whole time, right?"  Oh okay, that sounds like a business that really cares about their customer. I wish I would have taken a photo of look of on the service specialist face at Pacific Nissan when he looked under the hood. We both know the car you sold me was complete and utter junk. 


Perhaps, I've been too hasty. Now let's revisit my choice in vehicles. I mean maybe I misunderstood what you meant. Are you telling me that a 2004 Nissan Murano is a bad vehicle. Is that your official statement? That if anyone were to purchase a 2004 Nissan Murano, then they should expect to have the engine fall apart, the radiator crack, and a long list of repairs preformed all within the span of a year. Oh well I'll be sure to tell Nissan that you feel that way, Ken. However, I have plenty of friends with these vehicles and not one of them has even come close to the amount of problems I have had with this car. 


Don't fret Ken, I'm a reasonable person and you sound like you are clearly more intelligent and responsible. Why would Toyota of San Diego sell a vehicle that they had very little faith in? I mean if I owned a store, I probably wouldn't be selling my customers a substandard product at top market value. But hey, that's just my silly notions of business ethics. I'm confused and a bit curious to hear your answer.


Look I don't want to fight, so since you are so knowledgable about cars and I'm just a silly trusting consumer. Maybe you can solve this dilemma for me:
 What would suggest I do when my car starts jerking in the middle of the freeway. Are you telling me that I should have stopped in the middle of the freeway. Does that seem like sound advice to you? I mean honestly, should I have stopped in the middle of the freeway? Silly me and not wanting to cause a ten car pileup on the freeway. Duh! Obviously I should have just stopped. 


P.S. Thanks for the great insight on repossessions. I'm glad you're so knowledgeable about repossession, that sure did save me a lot of trouble. It seems like you have had some experience with these before. I'm really glad that in times of this great economic crisis, you took the time out of your day to arrogantly rub that in my face. Oh and you can tell the warranty company, which your dealership is in business with, that I said hi.
Well this has been fun, but I have to run because I have the San Diego Better Business Bureau on the other line. Let me know if you would like to reconsider your stance.

Ken,

I am Brieanna's mother and I can assure you she nor I nor her family are surprised by anything you've taken the time to share.  I am surprised that you chose to take precious life minutes to share it.

Yes, we know the second engine failure in less than 1 year was due to the loss of engine fluid resulting from the cracked radiator.  This is just one in a serious of mechanical failures that this vehicle had. 

I suppose you also think it was her fault that the check engine light came on after just 5,000 and when she took the car to her mechanic (because Toyota of San Diego told her they could not service it) her mechanic told her that the engine needed a complete flush and that it looked like someone added something to it?  When she then took the car over to the Nissan dealer, they did the flush and told her the engine needed to be replaced in addition to the catalytic converter.  Not sure what your definition is of Excellent condition but that is not mine and not most reasonable people.

I don't know if you are the salesperson who sold this vehicle to my daughter, someone who is associated to the sales person, the dealership or just someone who has nothing better to do with your time than blast someone in this manner, but here is the bottom line.  My daughter was sold a vehicle off the Toyota of San Diego lot.  The vehicle was represented as being in Excellent condition and sold at the price of an Excellent condition vehicle.  My daughter paid the Excellent Condition price and got a car that was patched together well enough to get it off the lot.  Now we are asking Toyota of San Diego to do The Right Thing and take back the pile of junk.

"Then within less than 6 months driving time, the radiator cracked and caused the replacement engine to fail."
You may be surprised to learn the cracked radiator did NOT cause the engine to fail.

The failure was caused by continuing to drive the car without coolant and thus the engine overheated and failed. Your warranty company also knows this.

Ask someone knowledgeable about cars if they agree.
  
You are right, however, the selling dealer owes you NOTHING.

You left out how old this car is and its mileage.

Once the car is repossesed, voluntary or otherwise, it is STILL a REPO and you will have a hard time finding anywhere near reasonable interest rates on a loan to you.