Reply To: ETCG Rants About His Trip To the Dealer

[Dan]

Eric thanks for your video Journalism, I’ve been watching for the last 10 years. Here is my story. I bought a 2007 Hybrid Camry from a Toyota Dealer.in So Cal. It was in pretty good condition when I test drove it Friday night except for some cosmetics; Review mirror was loose, carpet behind the driver seat had the piling removed down to the canvas, no floor mats, no owners manual, window tinting needed replacing, some normal dings for a car with 100K, passenger dash board looked like a kid with baseball cleats was relaxing with his feet up. The car ran well and breaked well, all the electronics work, lights, blinkers, power windows, seats, Sunroof, speed control, Bluetooth, radio, CD player, Aux connections, and the AC and heat. New tires, new brakes and the car fax report said the dealer had serviced the car for the last 6 years including a recent 4 wheel alignment. I ask the sales person what they had done to the car and he said they performed a safety check on the car. The price was $7500 and the car was listed AS IS, so I bought it. When I got home the next morning the AC was blowing hot. I took it to my independent Mechanic and he said the dealer put Freon in it for the test drive and it leaked out over night. I called the sales person and said we checked the AC last night together and it was working, right? and he said yes it was. I said I think you guy to take car of this and he said let me ask my manager. He came back a few minutes later and said the sales manager said sorry, you bought it as is. I said yes but you guys have been servicing this car for 6 years and there is no way you didn’t know the AC was not working. He said sorry why did you think it was so cheap. I told him it was at dealer Kelly blue book for the car and I assumed the discount was because it didn’t show well with all the cosmetic damage. Personally I think there was a little fraud going on hear. I took it to a different Toyota dealer told them my story and ask them to do a complete diagnostic on the car and told them I want to know everything that was wrong with the car. It turned out that the only thing that was wrong with the car was the AC condenser had a leak. They wanted $1500 to replace the condenser and $190 for the diagnostics. I told them I pay for the diag but not the condenser. My independent mech did the job for &530.