Premier Dealer Services ripoff! Liar! Run around! Will not honor contract. They will con you into exceeding warrantee mileage. San Diego California

Here is my problem, on 12/21/04 I took my 2001 Mitsubishi Diamante to Bell Mitsubishi in Rahway, NJ for Service. My complaints were that I had Anti-Freeze leaking into the passenger side of my car and that I regularly felt and heard something wrong somewhere in the region of my front left tire.

Initially I was told that the problem is most likely my struts and they would check it out. Now at this point my car is just shy of 60k miles which means I still have coverage under my extended warranty which I purchased when I leased the car. According to Bell Mitsubishi they found nothing wrong with the struts.

I'm no mechanic so I don't even know what struts are but I do know there was something wrong and I insisted to the customer service rep at the dealer that there was something wrong. He told me he had his technician test drive the car and found nothing wrong, but I still insisted and he then told me he would have his technician take it apart and get a better look.

After a few hours I called back and was told that they found nothing wrong with the car aside from the heater core leak which was causing the anti-freeze to leak inside my car. Lionel, the cust service rep then told me there was nothing else he could do for me regardless of my claim that there was something wrong with the struts or whatever the case may be.


Now knowing that my extended warranty would expire by the time I got home I didn't want to take my car but I couldn't leave it there either because they were refusing to acknowledge something was wrong. So I called the warranty company and explained my situation to Phil who works at Premier Dealer Service, Inc. which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Great American Insurance Company. He understood my situation and instructed me to take the car to another dealer and have them take a look at it regardless of whether I go over 60k miles or not.

He explained that the claim was made before 60k so that it wasn't a problem and all I had to do was make sure that the paperwork from Bell Mitsubishi noted that I complained about the struts which it was in fact noted. He then said that once the 2nd dealer verifies there is a problem he would then send an inspector to verify that problem and then authorize repair.

So as per his instructions and assurance on 1/4/05 2 weeks after I had my car at Bell Mitsubishi I brought my car to Bell South Mitsubishi in South Amboy, Nj which also happens to be owned by the same person who owns Bell Mitsubishi in Rahway, NJ. Before I actually brought the car in I called Phil at the Warranty company and advised him of where I was taking the car.

He then told me that he had no recollection of ever speaking with me about this issue and there were no notes in my file about this situation. He proceeded to tell me that I was lying. After we argued about what he says he never told me he then instructed me once again to bring the car to another dealer and have them check it out. Should the second dealer find something is in fact wrong he would send an inspector to verify and authorize repairs. So I took my car to Bell South Mitsubishi. upon arriving, Willie the gentleman from the service department called up Phil to verify the story with my car and again Ol' Phil had no recollection of speaking to me about 45 minutes prior nor did he have any recollection on the whole situation with my car.

He again proceeded to tell Willie that I was a lying but he once again agreed to have the car inspected and should there be something wrong he would send an inspector over to verify damages and authorize repairs. Sure enough not only did they find what was making the noise but it turned out that both my front struts were worn and needed to be replaced and they also found that my sway bar end links and bushings were also worn and needed to be replaced.

Why dealer # 1 did not notice any of this baffles me, after all its in their best interest to find anything possibly wrong because they get paid for doing the work. no work = no money. So I guess they just have a bunch of idiots working at Bell Mitsubishi in Rahway. Either that or there was some kind of agreement made with the warranty company in which maybe both sides win without much of a loss. I realize my second theory is way out there but you never know.

Anyhow after Bell South diagnosed what was wrong with my car the Cust Service Rep, (Willie) called Phil at the warranty company to get the ball rolling on the inspector and what not. After Willie hangs up with Phil he advises me that Phil is sending an inspector the next day (1/5/05) and that I need to leave my car at the dealer overnight because they will get to it 1st thing in the morning. So I returned later on that night to drop off my car.

The next day at about 1:oopm I called up Willie to get an update on my car and Willie explained to me that the inspector never came and that the reason he never came was because Phil never sent one. He had no intentions of sending one, he only told Willie he was sending one because I was standing in front of Willie while they were talking.

In the end after all the conversations and all the running around the warranty companies final stance was that since these issues with my car were found after my warranty expired that they were not liable to pay regardless of whether the complaint was made before the warranty expired. So why did he advise me as well as Willie on what to do when his intentions were to never pay any of the repairs? Why the big run around?

At this point I don't know what to do. I'm very frustrated and feel totally ripped off. So I go back to Bell Mitsubishi and spoke to a couple of managers and explained how their screw up is going to cost me over $800 worth of repairs which I cant possibly afford due to my current financial situation. I explained that their guys messed up and I shouldn't have to pay for it. They apologized for what they call an inconvenience and offered to give me one strut for a discounted price of $230.00 which I told them was completely unacceptable.

They then offered to replace the one strut that was making noise at a charge of $100 which I again refused and frankly was insulted by their offer. Its like they are admitting they messed up without saying they did but are still trying to get me to cough up money. I had already paid a $100 deductible for the work that was done on my heater core and I wasn't happy about that as well. That's another issue with the warranty company. Their policy is that is I should happen to take my car to any other dealer other from the one where I purchased my car I would be subject to a $100 deductible.

In this case I had no choice but to take it to another dealer because Salerno-Duane Mitsubishi which was located in Jersey City had moved to Summit, NJ and when I called them in Summit they stated that they were closing down and weren't doing any warranty repairs. I explained that it wasn't my fault that they wouldn't take my car and Phil the Warranty guy told me that I as well as anyone else who purchased a warranty at Salerno-Duane were "s**t out of luck". and we had no choice but to pay the deductible.

So Mark of Bell Mitsubishi was supposed to get back to my by mid last week on working out an arrangement to getting my car fixed and of course never did. I went to the dealer on Friday 1/14/05 and spoke to a sales manager and it seems that they are trying to say now that they are not at fault because the mechanic who serviced my car is their "a" mechanic and there is no way he would have missed everything that Bell South found in my car.

So while being as polite and as nice as possible it seems that they are now trying to say that I am a liar and that there was nothing wrong with the car when I had 1st brought it to their attention. And somehow 2 weeks later a problem appeared and now I'm trying to pin it on them just so that I don't have to pay. While this defense seems reasonable and might convince other people that they are correct and I am a liar they still cant get over the fact that I have their own paperwork stating I complained about the struts and that they found nothing wrong with them.

So what could that mean? That I'm a psychic and predicted that 2 weeks later my struts would all of a sudden wear out? Even then wouldn't I have predicted that nobody was going to pay for my repairs but me?

Carlos
north bergen, New Jersey
U.S.A.