Dealer Sold Me Repaired Car, What Should I Do?

[ctsmo]

well the 9-3 that i bought, went into service for the first time on march 10, 2008. while i was talking to the saab tech he told me that my car had repairs on 12/19/07 and 12/28/07, both are dates i never took my car in as i purchased the car on 12/18/07. also the dates had lower mileage than what i bought the car with. well looking at the repairs my 9-3 had a failed ECM and failed Catalytic Converter.

Is the dealer not supposed to disclose repairs if the car is sold as new. According to the DMV they are but GM is not willing to help me with this situation. Not sure what i should do against this dealer. if i had known about these repairs i would not have touched this car. its very disheartening spending your money for a product which you think is new, but in return is defective.

any advice or help would be greatly appreciated. btw the car was bought "new"

[roteague]

I fail to see how the car is defective. Dealers are always fixing things that arrive broken from the manufacturer; for whatever reason. They do it so the car won't be defective when sold.

[big swede]

Not sure how clear your story is because you mention mileage differences. It sounds like you bought a dealer demo with miles on it. They might call it new so they can sell it for top dollar but in reality it isn't new. It technically qualifies because it hasn't been sold to anyone in the general public but it has been driven and will get necessary maintenence just like a car sold to the general public.

There was a local paper delivery guy that bought a brand new Suburban with 15 miles on it and had a minor fender bender that he took to get fixed at a local shop and it had previously been in a pretty bad wreck and was fixed.

I bet he sat out in front of that dealership for 3 years with a huge lemon on the roof of his Suburban with poster boards telling the story of what happened. He also used that truck to deliver papers on his route so it was everywhere.

Apparently the dealer got so much negative publicity they wanted to finaly give him a new Suburban to go away but by this time the guy was so bent he much prefered to take down the dealership.

[redlipp]

Originally Posted by ctsmo

well the 9-3 that i bought, went into service for the first time on march 10, 2008. while i was talking to the saab tech he told me that my car had repairs on 12/19/07 and 12/28/07, both are dates i never took my car in as i purchased the car on 12/18/07. also the dates had lower mileage than what i bought the car with. well looking at the repairs my 9-3 had a failed ECM and failed Catalytic Converter.

Is the dealer not supposed to disclose repairs if the car is sold as new. According to the DMV they are but GM is not willing to help me with this situation. Not sure what i should do against this dealer. if i had known about these repairs i would not have touched this car. its very disheartening spending your money for a product which you think is new, but in return is defective.

any advice or help would be greatly appreciated. btw the car was bought "new"

if the dealer had repaired body damage he should disclose it if it is over $500, other than that, if someone takes a vehicle on a test drive and notices a factory defect it is up to the dealer to make the repairs and to my knowledge there is no reason to disclose that.

[big swede]

Originally Posted by redlipp

if the dealer had repaired body damage he should disclose it if it is over $500, other than that, if someone takes a vehicle on a test drive and notices a factory defect it is up to the dealer to make the repairs and to my knowledge there is no reason to disclose that.

That's perfectly reasonable and the way it should be. If someone took it on a test drive and the pcm was going out it might have screwed up the air fuel mixture and made it run super rich which can overheat the cat and kill it. Under this circumstance the dealer HAS to fix it so it can be sold. If that was the scenario I see no problem, enjoy your car.

[ctsmo]

they never mentioned demo. do they have to? also thats what im not sure about, the mileage and date differences. on 12/19/07 they changed the ecm with only 35 miles, and on 12/28/07 they changed the cat. conv. as it failed with 402 miles. i bought the car on 12/18/07 with 475 miles, and never went to a dealer before this past monday. so not sure what they are doing. the dmv said they are supposed to disclose repair information like this, but im confused as you guys saying they arent supposed to.

[Carver]

How many miles did your car have when purchased?

[redlipp]

Originally Posted by ctsmo

they never mentioned demo. do they have to? also thats what im not sure about, the mileage and date differences. on 12/19/07 they changed the ecm with only 35 miles, and on 12/28/07 they changed the cat. conv. as it failed with 402 miles. i bought the car on 12/18/07 with 475 miles, and never went to a dealer before this past monday. so not sure what they are doing. the dmv said they are supposed to disclose repair information like this, but im confused as you guys saying they arent supposed to.

sounds like to me either the car was on an extended test drive or possibly a dealer trade from another store, there are many different senarios that could have happened, the dmv isn't all knowing about the way cardealerships work, it is not necessary for a dealership to document to a potential customer everytime they pull a car into the shop and put air in the tires, wash the vehicle, remove bugs from the windshield etc, if you had of asked them in advance they could have given you the info, i don't really think they were trying to pull the wool over your eyes, warranty repairs happen all of the time, thankfully they noticed them and hopefully corrected everything for you. and like you said you were aware of the 475 miles, what else is it that you want them to do?