BarrieJ3
Royal Flush
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2018
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- 129 West 81st Street, Apartment 5B
yeah not a lemon. Wife’s Mercedes was a bought used (a year or two old), under warranty had piston head replaced 4 times. Never fixed the issue, all Mercedes dealers gave up. Car was in shop more than with us, now we’re just waiting for it to go kaput.Lemon is a loosely used word. Only applies to new cars having the same problem 3 times within the first year. And those instances you do hire a lawyer (almost believe it was required).
Otherwise, if you’re just having repeated issues over several years and you didn’t have time to file the lemon law problem you also can hire an attorney and work against the manufacturer and once again the dealer should assist you. The lawyer will only get paid based on the manufacturer pays you. My buddy just had a shit box jeep go to the shop over 20 times. Jeep cut them a check for $9k, he kept the car, attorney got $3k.
You also don’t need a lawyer but obviously helps you immensely if your not well versed in filing customer complaints against mega corporations.
Bottom line; build a relationship with your local franchise dealer. Pick one that has a great service department, not necessarily the “best new car prices” although of course that’s a bonus. Almost all new car dealers will sell at invoice or below. The real gem is the service department, a general manager who is on site everyday, and a bonus if the dealership is locally owned and not some mega auto group corp.
Much more important and current:
VW atlas bought brand new. All the known issues, including but not limited to warped rotors early on, infotainment system issues, blah blah. Drives bad, shudders in deep turns.
Brought it in repeatedly, all dealers say no issue.
Moved to NH, brought it into 3rd party VW shop for the first time - immediately identifies the issue, replicates it, shows me a video of issue, and says entire new transmission needed. Did it all for free, said no reason to have them do any work until their warranty work is done, even pulled the info that 3 available transmissions were in the US at the time.
Took it to the shop, they can’t replicate anything, no issues found.
I’m at 47,095 miles, warranty ends at 50k and in a few months. Feels like they’re just trying to wait me out at this point. I don’t know why shops don’t want any work on in warranty vehicles. We always service at dealers, we buy all the stupid sh*t with new cars that makes their whole profit, etc.
Edit - my kids are both getting Hondas/toyotas. A nice 1990 Tercel or 2006 accord with 190,000 miles, and another 200,000 miles left in em
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