tdavey

i have a feeling the dealership is taking advantage of me because i'm a girl. i know nothing about cars so i need some advice please. my jeep over heated in june and was towed into the service department @ the closest chrysler/jeep dealership. they told me that every thing under the hood was blown and that it all needed to be replaced. they charged me almost $6000 for a rebuilt engine and around $3000 for the a/c. the first time i went to pick it up after the engine rebuild it had trouble and i had to bring it back within the hour. i get it back a week later and it was running great, but the next day the a/c that i just paid to have fixed stopped working. they tried telling me it was going to be another thousand or so to fix the a/c even though i just paid them like $2600 to fix it a week before. i decided to just deal with not having an a/c because i could not afford to pay them any more money.
i have been driving the jeep for a little over a month with no issues, then wednesday it just randomly over heated and died. i had an independent mechanic check it out and he said the engine was completely blown AGAIN and needed to be replaced. he said the head gasket blew. i decided to have it towed back to the dealership again because they told me the rebuilt engine had a 12,000 mile warranty on it. they finally looked at it today and tell me that the warranty is not going to be honored and that they basically want another $5,000-6000 to rebuild the engine. they are saying that a hose came detached or had a leak and that is what caused the engine to over heat. they say that the hose is a secondary part and since that is what caused the over heating that the 12,000 mile warranty on my engine will not be honored. i'm not sure how to proceed at this point...i certainly do not have another $5000 to give them to put another new engine in it. also i don't know if they are lying about the hose or what to get out of having to give me a new engine.
does anyone have any advice on what i should do?
thanks in advance!

Grand99

Sounds like they are taking the pi$$!

Don't get any more work done and get an independant inspection report, then argue from there. They may not have done any real work in the first place! There is no way you should have to pay out again!

Secondary part or not, they last touched it so its up to them to make sure everything is in top shape. Remember, for the amount of money you just paid them, you could have bought another jeep!

tiwvr1

I agree, I work as a mechanic and if that happened at our shop we would have to fix it. We were the last ones to touch it. Don't stop *****ing if you have someone that can ***** for you, get them to do it. I know my wife doesnt have it in her to *****, if u are that way then find someone to ***** for you. And that is ALOT of money for a engine rebuild/replacment. You probably paid 3k for whe warrenty alone and not even know it. Get them to replace it, do not pay for ANY more work.

tdavey

i have called multiple times a day since it has been there, my mother and father and husband have also called them and i also threatened them with a lawsuit. they LAUGHED and said that i would never win against them if i took this to court. they keep talking circles around us trying to justify why they should not have to replace the engine under the warranty. i was going to just use that money to buy a new vehicle in the first place, but the service techs convinced my mother (who lent the $ to fix it) that if she got me a new engine it would be like having a whole brand new car for $5600 and they stressed the 12,000 mile warranty.
i have a report from the independent mechanic stating what the problems are with the jeep and he is willing to make a statement if i do end up having to take this to court. i would rather not have to go through all that if i can figure out how to get them to honor the warranty and just fix my jeep.

Grand99

Its wrong what they are saying...I would love to hear what they would say to a judge as to why they think they are not liable after you spent thousands with dollars with them.

When you speak to them, don't threaten legal action again. You don't mention this until its the very last avenue you go down, and when you do mention it, it will be because you have a lot of evidence in your favor and you will be able to take them to court a lot quicker.

What you need to do is stary running a log of all contact you make with the dealership. Take down names, dates, times and what was said, may be record conversations if you have the means to. Put things in writing and address them to someone specific at the dealership and send them via registered mail so you have a record of them being signed for. You can email them to. There is a program called readnotify that tags all your emails. They also have a tag thats admissible in court that proves they received and read your emails, what time and the location.

Being able to show a court that they treated you with contempt will go in your favor. They probably get threatened with lawsuits all the time and noone probably ever goes through with it, but I personally think you have a case.

You want one of two things. 1. to have your jeep fixed and everything working or 2. Your money back as they did not fix the problem in the first place.

The only thing is that because its over $5k means its out of the hands of a small claims court. Would be worth losing the $600 to have the case dealt with quickly IN the small claims court imo.

Feel free to pm me if you need any advice.

bluedragon436

^^ I am going to go with what he says.. Any hose that may have come loose and caused the engine to overheat, would have been a hose that they would have had to reconnect to the new/used/rebuilt engine that they installed, or at least should have checked when they installed the engine, so I am thinking for sure that it would be part of the warranty coverage, it may be a secondary part, but it is still a part they are responsible with due to them installed that engine... now if you were driving down the road and the hose just blew and nothing after that... then I can see them not wanting to cover the hose... but that would be it as far as covering the warranty. As far as taking it to court... yeah it might cost you a bit more money to do that, but if they won't validate the warranty than I would def. look into taking them to court to get your money back at least, wouldn't have that stealership do any more work, especially replacing that engine again... Also see if you can find out who the 12,000 mile warranty is through.. Cause if it is through another company you might be able to get up with that company and find out if there is another dealership you can take it to, to have the engine replaced under the warranty. I talked to a few different dealerships in my area and they all said that is what they would recommend you do if you can, just to at least get your Jeep back on the road at no further expense to you, other than maybe another tow. They also said that if they had installed a warrantied engine like that, they would cover it if anything happened like it did to you, and they also said they would take care of the AC issue as well as that is something they were supposed to fix for you and apparently all it seems that they did was recharge the system and not look for any leaks or anything else like that. And this is from a couple Dodge/Jeep dealerships as well as a few independent used car lots...

SeriousOffroad

One word:

LAWYER

They left the hose loose, not you. Don't talk to them again, let the courts handle it.