MelClayton Ford, Mel Clayton Ford Santa Barbara I was an employee, with them and left because of their business practises, 1990-95 SantaBarbara California

I started working at Mel Clayton Ford and was privy to their internal methods of doing business. I was hired to be the principal mechanic in their "New" used car "opperation", and found that they would sell cars before there was even a safety report. I would receive the car and discovered that it had already been sold, without one look at the car or truck. There was a service station nearby and they would send the cars over there and get the safety inspection papers done even before anything was inspected, The just signed off on the cars and some days 10-15 cars were cleared using this method, I was the mechanic at the Dealership, and I had never even seen these cars before. We got allot of unsatisfied customers returning the cars, and I had never seen these cars once, I found out they had paperwork prepared by the aforementioned service station, but the cars were not safe nor were they even sound vehicles. Many cars were Rigged to work well enough that the customers would drive them away.  I was ordered to do the most terrible things to the cars, so the customer would have to keep their payments up to date. One Mitsubishi small sedan had a malfunctioning balance shaft in the motor and it was dropping oil pressure for the motor, the red check engine light wouldn't go out and the Manager ordered me to remove the indicator light, so the customer thought it was fixed, well it was "Fixed" just not te proper way. I complained and they said take it or leave it, if you want to keep you job, than you need to "Do what we tell you"

After they got the used car opperation going i switched over to regular repair work and became a Heavy line tech, it just means, i would do engines and transmission work on Flat rate hours, and durring my stay I found that some techs were not putting the parts in the cars and just would keep the parts and clean the motor, than charge for the repairs, sometimes the owners weren't aware that Mel Clayton Ford had charged Ford, for whole new motors for their cars and trrucks.

And one day a Ford rep came into the shop area, and said " Congradulations you guys are number 1 in the nation, for warranty repairs, and I am here to audit you"

These guys had been "cooking the books" and the whole dealership went out of business, Mel retained his Phonix opperation, and continued wirh his business as usual system of defrauding Ford and selling used cars,

If your used car had a $1000 dollar down payment, that's how much they bought it for and any payments that hit the bank were 100% profit, if not they would reposes the car and sell it again, and again, and again.

They were using cars to create a payment history for your future credit, using in house credit sales. Frequently this was all show and no go (pun intended) I saw them sell $500 dollar cars for $4000 dollars, than take it back due to a missed payment

Ford caught them making claims on brand new cars. I heard him yelling that "not one car will get through here without a warrany claim being made on each one" That was Mel yelllng about his plans, at the Service director J B Reeves, who was fired shortly thereafter.

I started making plans to move to Oregon shortly thereafter, now I run my own business in Keno, Oregon. A short way from klamath falls oregon.