I visited the showroom at Vorderman Motor Werks in Fort Wayne, Indiana mid-July of 2003 with the intention to find a new vehicle. I've had good experiences previously when my 1997 Golf was regularly serviced at their dealership, so I felt it was the ideal place to start the search for a new car.
My preference going in was a 2003 Jetta, but after doing the finance and credit check, the Finance Manager was only able to secure a loan with conditions, which resulted in me being matched up with a 1999 Passat.
Just one week after the purchase, I was headed up north for a weekend trip and the oil light started flashing and the warning buzzer went off. I ended up pulling off in Auburn, Indiana, checked the oil, read the owners manual, and decided to turn around and leave the car in their lot for service that same night.
The following day, after being serviced, the main service guy told me he felt the oil may not have been changed since the car arrived on their lot and that there was an after market oil filter on the car.
Thankfully, the dealership covered the costs, but it's still questionable how these items were missed during the official Volkswagen "certification" inspection of the car before it was cleared to be sold.
By the time my first regular service rolled around, I had compiled a list of items I felt warranted attention, including an unbalanced driver's side rear tire; a knocking noise from the engine compartment; and a very noticeable rattle from the rear suspension. All of these items became apparent during typical city driving, so it’s not like I was off-roading or performing in street races and causing these problems.
During the service visit, the tire was found to be "cupped" due to previous tire rotations. The assessment from the service guy was to let it go for 1,000 miles to see if it "fixed itself". The knocking noise from the engine compartment was apparently never found. I still hear it on a daily basis, but perhaps I'm just "imagining" it. An outstanding recall item on the vehicle was also done, but it did not correct the suspension rattle.
I easily put on the 1,000-mile tire test over the summer months and it continued to worsen. I finally decided to have the Vorderman Parts Department order a new tire and eventually had it installed on October 31, 2003. This cost was not covered by the dealership, even though the tire was sold to me in that condition, whether it was known or not by the Service Department or the used car division.
Everything seemed good with the tire until a week later, when new vibrations became apparent.
Again, the biggest question I had is how does this tire issue get missed during the "certification" inspection of the car before it was cleared to be sold?
I drive the car on a daily basis and get to feel the vibrations. I get to hear the knocking from the engine compartment. And I get to hear the suspension rattle every time I hit a minor bump in the road. And my usual response is that the car is a lemon, plain and simple.
I went through the process of doing a vehicle history search via CarFax to see if there was an obvious source of these ongoing problems, but the history of the vehicle appeared to be clean.
Having accepted the fact that the car was probably just "troublesome", I continued to drive it daily through Winter 2003 and into Spring 2004, living with the same nagging problems the car has had since the day I drove it off the lot.
By late June 2004 it was time to change the timing belt (75,000 miles) and do regular maintenance work. Since I had already planned to be on vacation for the July 4 holiday weekend, I booked this service at the local VW dealership where I was vacationing. It was during this work that the true nature of the vehicle finally presented itself.
My father took the opportunity of having the front end apart to do a quick inspection at the dealership. He’s been a licensed mechanic since the 1950’s, he’s been an automobile damage appraiser for the last 27 years and is currently a court accepted expert witness. He found the front chassis to be bent and parts tags were still evident on selected parts at the front of the vehicle. It’s his professional opinion that the vehicle had been in a wreck and thus had been rebuilt sometime before it was "certified" and cleared for sale to me.
Once the 75,000 mile service was completed, I took the car to a local body shop to have it tested on a frame alignment machine.
The good news?
I finally had an answer about that nagging suspension rattle. It actually turned out that all the belly pans and fender liners are loose.
The bad news?
Why was this major development never discovered during the "certification" inspection?
Why was this major development never mentioned to me during the negotiation to purchase?
Why was this major development never included in the official Title of the car?
Since I purchased the car in July 2003, I've had plenty of great comments from co-workers about the car and lots of questions regarding my happiness with it. My response is usually the same: very unsatisfied.
Unsatisfied with the condition of the car when it was sold to me. Unsatisfied by the response of the service staff to address the issues that I mentioned to them at every service appointment. And generally unsatisfied that this well regarded dealership would sell a car of this condition.
I really expected more from Vorderman and was frustrated about where to proceed and whom I could turn to for a resolution, so I consulted with an attorney about legal action. The title was not branded as "salvaged" so the dealership did nothing wrong by selling the vehicle. The warranty states the vehicle was sold "as is", meaning all service costs after the sale is my responsibility.
But after the discovery of a previous wreck to this vehicle, there’s that nagging feeling that I did not get what I had bargained for and continue to pay for. It’s upsetting to know that I bought this car in good faith, confident that it was a "mint" condition/"certified"/"inspected" vehicle, and continue to pay a premium price for it. I did not bargain for, let alone agree to buy, a partially repaired/poorly repaired collision-damaged vehicle.
Armed with documented evidence of this collision-damaged vehicle, I composed a letter to Reg Vorderman, President of the dealership, and gave him a timeline of the problems I’ve experienced and requested some sort of resolution. Reg Vorderman emailed me to confirm he had received the documents and basically handed it off to his staff to deal with.
David Vance, Operations Manager at the dealership, sent me a letter indicating they wanted to "resolve the situation to my satisfaction" and offered to take the Passat back as a trade towards another vehicle. He invited me to meet with Dana Furthmiller, General Sales Manager at the dealership, to work out a solution.
An appointment was made to meet with Dana Furthmiller during the first week of August 2004. Yet when I arrived at the dealership, I was quickly handed off to one of the used car salesmen to begin paperwork, like I was just another sale. This struck me as odd, considering none of the management staff ever took a moment to greet me or to make sure my situation as "being resolved to my satisfaction".
I finally met with Dana and he crunched the numbers on a deal for a replacement vehicle I had already selected and driven. Basically, they wanted more than the Kelley Blue Book listing for the replacement vehicle, and they were only willing to give me considerably less than what was paid for my Passat, leaving Vorderman asking for an additional $6,000 to make my whole unfortunate situation go away.
Does that sound like a dealership trying to "resolve the situation to my satisfaction"? No, it sounds like the dealership seeing dollar signs. Cha-Ching!
Needless to say, I got a good chuckle out of their offer to satisfy me. I made a counteroffer that would give them $3,000 and we’d close the chapter on my adventures. Sadly, they responded a few days later that they had been more than generous with their offer and would not be able to reduce their costs any further.
I think I’ve been fairly flexible in trying to reach a resolution with this dealership. I never asked for a full refund to purchase from another dealership; I also never asked for a shiny, brand new replacement vehicle. I chose to work with this dealership to find a comparable used vehicle replacement and even offered to throw in an additional $3,000!
Still frustrated, I filed a complaint with the local Better Business Bureau and the Indiana Attorney General's office for Consumer Protection. Within days the BBB had already responded, indicating Vorderman had considered the case closed and offered me mediation services, which I promptly requested. Mere days after requesting this mediation, the BBB responded by saying the entire case was closed, my complaint against Vorderman classified as "invalid" and no negative comments would go on Vorderman's record. They didn't give me any reason why the case was suddenly closed, right after having personally asked for mediation services.
The Attorney General's office has become my last resort, unless there are other options out there. The AG's office received the same response from Vorderman, that they did everything they could to satisfy my concerns and that they viewed the case as closed. The AG's office asked me to verify the Vorderman response in order to proceed, which I did at the very end of August 2004.
Having heard nothing for a good 6 weeks after that point, I called my contact at the AG's office and asked for an update on the case. They stated that after review of the entire case, the attorney had specific questions for Volkswagen America, the answers to which had just been received when I called. So I should be hearing a response from the AG's office sometime soon, hopefully with a clear direction of my available options, and hopefully not another single letter saying the case has been closed.
