This is a copy of my complaint to the Bureau Of Regulatory Services
On 5/09/2008 my wife and I went to Champion Chrysler, 6525 W Saginaw Hwy, Lansing, MI 48917, to look at used Dodge Chargers. While on the lot, we were approached by salesperson Phil Bell. We were convinced to take a 2006 Charger for a test drive. My wife didn’t like this car and mentioned that I would like to have a car with the Hemi engine.
Phil asked us if we ever considered a Chrysler 300C and that he had one on the “back lot” that had just come in and hadn’t gone through all of their inspection and detail work yet. He told us he could get us a great deal on this vehicle.
We went out to the back lot and I immediately noticed several problems with this car. The paint had “wheel marks” all over from not being buffed out properly, the carpet was filthy and had a tear in it. There were a few door dings around the car and most noticeable were about five large dents in the rear driver side roof. Phil reminded us that this car had not been through inspections, service, body and detail yet and we weren’t really supposed to see this car like this.
He got the keys and we took this car for a test drive. While driving we noticed more problems. The car pulled to the right while driving down the road, the brakes pulsed when applied lightly to stop and at idle, the engine would shake the whole car. We also pointed these problems out to our salesperson. He reminded us once again that we were not even supposed to see this car yet and all of these problems would have been caught and corrected during their inspection process.
At this point he asked us to come in so he could run some numbers and see what he could get us into this car for. We brought up our concerns about the issues with the car again and he told us that if we purchased it, they would fill out a We Owe sheet with all of the issues that they would take care of to our complete satisfaction the following week. During this repair, it would take one, maybe two days and during the time they had the car in for the repairs owed, we would be given a loaner car to drive.
It was now later into the afternoon and we had to go pick up our children from school. This is were they start the typical dealership “never let a sale walk out the door” tactics and told us to go ahead and drive the 300. After picking up our kids, we returned to the dealership and talked numbers. When we reached a price everyone agreed on, we decided our kids couldn’t take much more sitting around the dealership and we would have to come back in the morning to do paperwork. Once again they insisted we take the 300 home over night.
While at home and checking the car out a little closer, the problems started to worry us a little more and we were starting to decide maybe this wasn’t the car for us. When we arrived at the dealership the next morning, we told our salesperson this and showed him a lot of the issues. He assured us that everything would be done to our complete satisfaction. That this was a new dealership in the area and they don’t want anyone dissatisfied with their purchase. That this was a “five star” dealership that we could trust.
We went ahead with the purchase on 5/10/2008 and made plans to bring the car in on 5/14/2008 to have all of the issues taken care of. We dropped the car of at about 8:30am on 5/14. Late in the afternoon, we were called and told they were going to have to keep the car another day to finish up everything. We told them this was not a problem, since they had given us a loaner vehicle as promised and we wanted to make sure everything was taken care of.
On the afternoon of 5/15, we were called and told the car was ready. When we arrived to pick it up, the first thing we noticed was that the huge dents in the roof were still there, wheel marks in the paint were still very visible and the carpet had not been touched. They told us that they needed to call in somebody from the outside to fix the roof dents and they were “in between” carpet guys right now and would have a new one the following week. After driving the car, we realized that the alignment of the front end was dramatically worse than it was previous to them “fixing” it. The brakes still pulsed and the engine vibration was still there.
We returned and sales manager Jason Hull was who we were told to speak to. He had a bad attitude with us right off the bat and acted as if we were a bother that he didn’t even want to deal with. We pointed out the roof dent, wheel marks, door dings and alignment to him. He said we would have to schedule it to come in again. We also had him sit in the car while it was running to feel the engine vibration (a vibration so bad that my two seven year olds and five year olds noticed). He said that he drives a 300C everyday and that it was normal and to bring it in when it was doing it worse. We scheduled the car to come back in on 5/22/2008 to have the rest of the problems addressed.
When we dropped the car of on 5/22, the service manager Bryan Scribner told us that he could only take care of the things that the sales dept told him to do and that was the re alignment and we had to deal with sales on anything else they had promised us. We went out to the sales floor to find Jason and he walked by us, turned his head and ignored us. We noticed that he went up and sat by the general manager John Knaggs. We approached them and I began to express our dissatisfaction with this dealership and that nothing promised and agreed to on the signed We Owe form had been taken care of and that some things had been made even worse. Jason Hull told John that he had a carpet guy he could get in that day to take care of the carpet and a roof dent guy was scheduled for that day. John said that he wanted his own list of what was to be done so he could personally oversee it. He and I walked out the service dept. where I pointed out a three inch long dent in a door that they were supposed to take care of. He said it would be and was going to circle it with a marker so it didn’t get missed. When we were walking back inside John told me the reason he was taking this over is that “ Jason is making promises to you he can’t keep”. He said that he didn’t think he had a carpet guy he could get that day. By the way, no loaner car as agreed to.
When we dropped off the car, we were told that the outside dent person they had called in to do the roof dents was “going to be here any minute”. This was at 9am. Late that afternoon we were left a voicemail by Jeff Freese (another service manager). I called him back and he told me that the dent guy just arrived and they would have to keep the car overnight. Late in the afternoon the next day, 5/23, we received at call from Bryan Scribner that we could pick up our car.
When we arrived to pick up the car, it was parked in the front of the building. We inspected the roof dent “repair” and it went from 10 inches wide across the back of the roof to about 24 inches wide after the repair. Also, it was now peppered with little tiny dents now. We went inside and while we were talking to Brian Scribner the body shop manager came out. As we were talking to them about the car, the sales manager Jason Hull ran out to the service department and got in my face demanding to know who told us that the car was ready. I told him that Brian had left the message. He began screaming at Brian that the car was not ready and the carpet wasn’t done yet. This meant that he intended to keep our car AT LEAST an additional 4 days over the memorial holiday weekend.
We took them out to the car to show them why we were not satisfied with the roof dent repair. While we were walking to the car, I told Jason that the engine vibration that he said was normal was not and we had been to other dealerships and sat in other 2005 300Cs and that vibration was not present and someone from Story Chrysler said that vibration was not normal and it was probably a bad sensor or a fuel injection problem. Jason sat down in our car and said that now he feels it, but the service guys can’t so bring it back when it’s worse. I also went over the dent with him and he said that it was as good as they could get it without “breaking the factory paint”. He said they could get it perfect, but it would involve re painting the repair and that’s the last thing we would want. He also stated that it’s “production sheet metal” and it would not be perfect. He also stated that you know that dent is there but is anybody else going to notice it. Basically admitting that the repair was not quality, the dent is still there, but no one else will ever notice it. He then also told me his sob story about how the dealership was “in the hole” on the car now, that they had lost money on repairing it. Again, not my problem.
Then he proceeded to tell me he wants to make us happy but we have to give him time because they are a new dealership and their “communication is bad”. Not my problem. We set up us bringing the car back on the morning of 5/27. When we arrived we went into the service department and Brian told us that we had to deal with Jason. Now we are back to dealing with Jason after the general manager, John Knaggs had told us that Jason was making promises he couldn’t keep and he was personally taking this over. He then turns around and puts Jason back on it.
We went to the sales floor and Jason told us that he had the carpet repairman coming that day. He asked if after the carpet was repaired, are we done. We told him that we felt nothing had been completed to our satisfaction yet. The roof dent was still bad, maybe worse, the alignment still pulled to the right, the crease was still in the door, there were still wheel marks in the paint, the engine still vibrates and now starts to stall and the brakes still pulse. He sat in his chair and nodded his head and said ok. We left our car, once again without the loaner car that had been promised.
Four days later, after not hearing one word from anyone at the dealership about what was going on with the car or when to expect it back, we decided it was time to call them. At about 4:45pm on 5/30, my wife called and spoke to Jason Hull. He said he was glad we called, he was about to call us. Then he asked my wife to refresh his memory as to what he was doing for us. If he was about to call us, it would seem he would know this. He began to tell us that he had been through 3 carpet guys and give him 20 minutes and we could pick up the car. They had the car four entire days to fix a four inch carpet tear. The last two days that they had the car, it was sitting in there lot on the east side of the building with nothing being done. My wife goes to the Starbucks across the street from the dealership daily and was keeping track of the car sitting outside.
After my wife got off the phone with Jason, I decided it was time to call the gm John Knaggs on his cell. After all, he was “handling this one personally”. When he answered his phone I told him who I was and asked if he remembered me. He asked me to “refresh his memory”. I told him the story, that they have had my car for a total of 8 days out of 21 to do repairs that we were originally told would take one to two days and that none of the repairs had been done right. He told me he was turning around and going back to the dealership to see what was going on. I told him to call me back.
Five minutes later he called me back and told me I was on speaker phone with the body mangager, the service manager, Jason Hull and himself. The first thing he said after that was “”how would you feel about getting out of this car completely?” I told him that that would be ideal that I was sick of dealing with it. He asked how much we paid for our car and I told him. He then proceeded to try to up sell me to a 2007 300C. A car two years newer and and $11,000 more than the original car we purchased. I told him I was not about to give them more of my money to reward them for screwing up. He then told me he could take the car back and give him a week or two to get a different one at auction. I told him I would come in the following morning to check out the 2007 and see what they could do on that, but waiting an additional 1 to 2 weeks wasn’t an option.
That night my wife and I decided to go pick up the car, as it was ours. For the past two days, it had been sitting on the east side of the building, visible from the road. When we pulled through the parking lot, it was nowhere to be seen. We drove through the entire lot and hit the panic button to try to locate it and ended up hearing our horn honking, locked up in the service dept. They had purposely withheld our car from us behind locked doors. At that point we were sure that we wanted nothing to do with these dishonest people and we just wanted our money back and start our car hunt all over again.
The next morning, we arrived at the dealership and asked for John Knaggs. He came over to us and asked if we wanted to see the 2007. I told him no, I just want to end this and not deal with you anymore. He agreed. He said the next step would be for them to get the car back in the body shop, to break the paint and fix the dent and then to service to work on the engine vibration. I told him that have had my car for 8 out of 21 days and I’m not starting this process all over. I told him we wanted our money back and they could have their car back and we could walk away from each other. He told me this couldn’t be done because the title was in my name. I asked if he was telling me that I need to get a lawyer and sue him and he said that was fine. I told him that I would be filing complaints with the Attorney General, The Bureau Of Regulatory Services, The Better Business Bureau, Chrysler and tell my story on every online forum I could find. He said that was fine and walked back into his office and sat down at his computer. Leaving us standing there, without the car he had locked up. We went to the service department and asked for our car. It took them 10 minutes to find the keys that it turned out Jason Hull had. So not only had they locked up our car from us, they didn’t put the keys where anyone could find them, Jason was hiding those also.
We left and went straight to another to Bill Snethcamps, another dealership in town. They had a 2005 Chrylser 300C for sale that was the same year, same engine and same color. We told our story about dealing with Champion and we just wanted to get rid of this car and get into one that didn’t have anything to do with Champion. They told us that Champion had “sent a lot of customers” to them because of how they deal with people. They traded our car for the 300C that they had. After the trade in price and paying tax and title again, we lost $3632 on the original car not to mention the extra cost of the new car.
All we are asking is for Champion to make it right, since they could not live up to their end of the deal they made with us and refused to take the car back and end this ordeal. I am requesting that they pay us just the $3632 we lost on the trade in of the car that they would not refund. The additional money we paid for the cost of the new car is not an issue.
Dealing with the unprofessional attitudes of the management at Champion and them trying to scam out of the obligations they made to us as cheaply as possible has been a three week long nightmare that has stressed us out the entire time, day and night. We just want what is fair, nothing for our time and trouble, just the money lost on the lemon car that they were so quick to sell us, take our money and brush us off.
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