The new owner of this garage arranged for and approved the sale of a car for my teenage son. Apparently, the prior owner of this car had been longtime customer of the previous owner and he had serviced this vehicle from the beginning. Upon inspection, he gave it his approval and said it was a fantastic car. My son bought it and we followed up with our local mechanic to be informed of an estimated $3800 worth of repairs to make the car safely drivable. My son paid $4500 for the car! We took the car to Subaru in Cherry Hill, where it was originally purchased, and 2 other local garages that we have used for other opinions. (Yes, should’ve been done prior to the purchase! Lesson unfortunately learned the hard way! I have purchased many used cars from private owners and I have never done so without taking it to my personal garage but I really just thought this was kind of like the same thing since this garage had serviced the car for its entire life. I will never make this mistake again! And honestly, life is so much nicer when you can actually trust people! I couldn’t imagine that grown up human beings could actually screw a teenage kid that was so eager and excited to purchase his first car! Shame on them:( ) It was determined by all three places that the brake lines were rusted and faulty, power steering was leaking and could fail at any time (or cause further damage if not repaired promptly for $1,300), brake pads were in the throwaway zone, leaking from the corroded emission pipes (would not have passed pa inspection). The Subaru dealership has been wonderful and helping my son out as well as Family Car Care Center in Cherry Hill. They welded and fixed the emission leak for him at a significant reduction in cost.
**My son purchase this vehicle and saved every dime for it. The repairs that were required to make this car safely drivable put him well above his budget. The car is still sitting in our yard waiting for the power steering to be fixed so that he can actually drive the car that he’s now indebted to.
While there are wonderful people that are helping him out of a terrible sale and a horrible situation with people that couldn’t have cared less about the hard work that was put into saving for this car but they didn’t care for his physical well-being either. He happily drove this car away with people knowing he was in danger. I wouldn’t take a toy car into this garage! I admittedly was fooled upon first meeting this man because his toddler son was in the garage and that immediately meant he must be trustworthy! The dog in the office is a great touch as well. The bottom line is, this man either doesn’t know anything about cars or he knowingly put my son in a faulty vehicle with brake lines and power steering that could have failed him on his drive home!
My husband and I have been in contact with this garage since finding all of the damage to the car. He looked at the digital reports I put in front of him from 3 different garages and he basically told me he was right and they were all wrong. We asked him for the service records for the car which took a ridiculous amount of time to receive (approx 2 weeks of constant phone calls). He used excuses like no Wi-Fi, no access to computer, no ability to print; if you’re a business owner and a customer requests records to a vehicle, that’s your job! I requested the full service history records from Subaru in Cherry Hill and I had it delivered digitally within a half an hour. That’s how business is done!
Upon review of these records, I found inconsistencies in the stories I had been told. This car‘s engine was replaced when it was two years old. I was told it was flood damage by this garage owner and the girl with whom I purchased it from. Turns out, they both lied and the engine burnd out because the girl drove it with a hole in the radiator while ignoring her engine lights on her dashboard and she killed the engine! I stumbled upon this while reviewing the service records from Subaru. They assured me there was absolutely zero water damage noted in the records for this car. This is precisely the reason we do not purchase cars for our children! They clearly don’t have the ability to appreciate the value of the gift they are being given! While this girl drove her brand new leased car into the ground while ignoring her engine lights flashing in front of her, my son purchased it with his own money and is now saddled with almost the equal value of repairs to make for it because this girl couldn’t be bothered with basic upkeep! This garage owner facilitated the sale of this car and he should have been able to see at least one of the problems the other three garages discovered! Businesses earn repeat business from me through their integrity. This garage has zero! HE LET MY 18-YEAR-OLD SON DRIVE A CAR WITH CORRODED BREAK LINES AND FAULTY POWER STEARING (among other issues!)!! He is a father-how could a parent do that to another parent? Unconscionable.
