We told them what we were looking for and they found us a... - keitho9
We told them what we were looking for and they found us a car that seemed to fit the bill and gave us a good background for the car. Turned out it had a totally different background which, had we known, we would have never bought because it had been in an 'moderate' accident involving the left front end. Despite our best efforts, we have been unable to get any record of repairs. After we had bought it, I found a big chunk missing out of the rim on the that side. Ten months later, despite Phil Long's mechanics having said they inspected it before we bought it and twice when we had the oil changed, they somehow overlooked a broken cv boot and that axle went to wobbling during a long trip. We limped it home then took it in. They found not only a missing boot on the passenger side, they also said the driver side axle was wobbling like it was bent. They not only refused to acknowledge this was caused by the previous owners accident, the mechanic flat out lied to me not needing to test drive it further after I drove it and he acknowledged he felt the vibration and the wobble. That car has a Snapshot that showed they drove it twice for a total over 10 miles setting off 1 hard acceleration and 3 hard brakes. Yet they drove it less than .03 miles to test it after they replaced the axles. Guess they'd rather break than find it by an actual inspection. I had called Mitch and he ASSURED me he'd pull out the Snapshot device after he set it off. Instead, it appears they just opted not to actually test drive it after they worked on it. Mitch even told me cv axles don't have splines as if I'm too stupid know anything about this kind of car because I've only worked on older, rear wheel drive vehicles. I have both old parts and all the ends have splines so I question his knowledge of what a spline is! They quoted us a price of $707 to replace both axles but refused to release it back to us unless we paid them $821 due to an added 'shop charge' and when pressed what that meant, Mitch would only say it was for the 'use of their equipment'. They charged us $320 for axles I could pick up at O'Reily's for $210, $24 to replace the 2 quarts of transmission fluid they lost replacing the axles and $375 for what they put down as 3 hours of labor. So unless your so rich it makes you feel good to pay extra for nothing but BS before the sale with attitude after the sale, then I'd highly recommend shopping somewhere else. If you do buy from them, pay the extra before you sign to have a private mechanic THOROUGHLY inspect the car and research it's history! CARFAX does not tell you enough! You might also want to limit them on the number of credit checks they can do on you. The first company they applied to get us a loan from sent us a letter (received after the sale) showing we had been approved yet we wound up getting almost a dozen more hard credit checks on our record while they 'shopped' for a 'better deal' but we have NO reason to believe it was a better deal for us since we only found out about all the credit checks by approval letters we wound up with weeks later. Absolutely NOTHING was ever said by Phil Long Toyota about any credit problem or any other reason for having done more than 1 credit check. Once you sign for the car, you will be stuck with any problems you didn't have them fix BEFORE you signed regardless of any 'promises' made to get you to buy it.
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