The idea of the used-car salesman as a slick scumbag lower than just about every other life form is not a new one, but up until now, I hadn't really had any experience with it. I've bought all of my cars used, but I got them from CarMax, where the price is fixed and the cars have all gone through a mandatory inspection/service system, plus you can get a warranty. So there's no haggling over the price, and there's a certain assurance that the car will be in proper working order. The sales all went like this: I looked for a car I wanted, found one online, called CarMax to let them know I was coming in to see it, checked out the car and took it for a test-drive, and bought it. Easy as pie.
Then Jason and I went and bought a crappy van from a used commercial van and truck dealer here. We knew we were getting a beater, but were willing to put some money into the thing to get it in good shape, because it was so inexpensive to begin with. I also got the dealer to throw in a free tune-up. This was on a Saturday. The salesguy (named Les -- his license plate says "GO LES" -- oy) assured us that it would be done in a couple of days, by Wednesday at the latest.
Well, he was wrong. After two weeks of "oh your van will be ready on Thursday nope whoops it'll be ready on Monday no sorry it'll be ready on Wednesday blah blah bloo blee" I called them and said, basically, "what the fuck?" The guy assured me he was doing his best, lied to me that he had offered Jason a loaner (he absolutely didn't), and told me that they were busy. I said, "That doesn't really help me. You've had the car for two weeks. It's a tune-up, not major repairs. I don't understand how a tune-up takes so long. You change the oil and the filter, check the spark plugs, check the belts and hoses, cap the fluids, and you're done." He said, in a tone like I was a complete moron, "fine, if that's the way you feel, it'll be ready this afternoon." "Fine." "Fine." Asshole.
So we went and picked up the van. It ran rough, and ate way too much gas, but we knew this and were prepared to spend some money getting it fixed up. Jason was happy -- he could toss his surfboard in the back, take the dog to the beach without worrying about getting sand all over my car's leather upholstery, drag his tools around.
Then the next day, Les called. "You need to bring the van back."
"Why?"
"Because we forgot to do the safety inspection and update the state safety sticker."
"*sigh* Ok, we'll bring it this afternoon."
So we took the van in, and Les and the mechanic drove it down the road to the shop. We were assured that it's a simple process that will take no more than 15 minutes.
Forty-five minutes later, Les and Brian, the lot manager, came back without the van.
"We have a problem."
"What?"
"We can't get the van started."
"Why not?"
"We think there's a problem with the alarm system, and that we tripped it and now the engine is shut down and we can't get it going. We're going to jump the battery."
I've listened to enough Car Talk to know that this sounded like a stupid plan.
"Why? You just said that you think it's an alarm problem, not a battery problem. Why don't you just deactivate the alarm?"
"Oh, that's very difficult and complicated."
"We didn't have any problems with the alarm. We turned it on, we turned it off, the van ran fine. So what are we supposed to do?"
"We're trying to get it started now."
"OK. That's strange. It was running fine when we brought it here."
That started a prolonged argument that ended up with Jason and me in Brian's office, Jason sitting quietly looking peeved, and me and Brian arguing. Brian's point seemed to be that we had bought a cheap van as-is, and it wasn't his problem. According to him, he just happened to be the unlucky one who had possession of the van when it stopped working. I pointed out that when I bought the van, it was running, when I took it home, it was running, when I brought it back, it was running, when he took it down to the mechanic, it was running, and only after the mechanic did something to it did it stop running. He reiterated again that it was a cheap van. I told him to stop lecturing me about buying a cheap van, and that "as-is" meant that I assumed the risk of the condition of the van as of the time I bought it, not that he got to fuck it up more after I bought it and then dump the problem in my lap.
The argument was going nowhere, so I said so and said that I wanted to see the van and what the mechanics were doing to it. Turns out, it was the alarm, which the mechanic suddenly remembered how to deactivate (it wasn't so complicated after all). But in the meantime, they had flooded the engine trying to start it and sprayed some kind of high-octane shit all over the engine and the fuel injectors. We waited for the engine to de-flood, finally started it, and began the trip home. About 10 miles into the 17 mile trip, the engine started to lose power and acceleration. First Jason couldn't get it over 60, then 55, then 50, until by the time we were a mile or so from the house, we couldn't get it about 15 mph and we were waving people to pass us. But we managed to get home, found a mechanic not too far away, and arranged to take it in the next morning.
The next morning, we couldn't get it started at all. So we got a tow-truck to take it to the service place. That was on Saturday (April 15). The service place worked on it for 5 days, managed to get it started and fixed the alarm system, but the car still won't run -- as soon as you put it in drive, it stalls out. They can't figure out what's wrong. So now we have to pay to have it towed to the Ford dealer so that maybe they can figure out what's wrong. And in particular, whether what the dealer did caused the van to go from a rough-running -- but nonetheless running -- vehicle into a completely broken down piece of shit. I have confidence that the answer is yes, and when I have enough evidence to satisfy the relatively low "more likely than not" civil court standard, I'm going to take Brian to small-claims court and hand him his ass on a platter.
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