Complaint Review: American Powersports

 I had been working with a sales person at American Powersports for about a week. I found a 2011 Can-Am Renegade 800 XXC VIN: 3jbhxln14bj000072 on Craiglist with a message to call Andy. I called Andy and asked about the condition of the ATV, he said that it was in excellent condition, had not been wrecked and had no problems. When talking about the price, he said it was on consignment and the price was firm. We set up a time and my father and I took off work and made the two hour drive to the dealership. Once we got there we immediately noticed issue 1, the front bumper was completely bent in with serious scratching for a unit that had "less than 40 hours on it". This was indicative of an obvious crash. Before test driving the machine my father noticed that the coolant resevoir was empty. This was a serious alarm for both of us and we started to look for a leak, and found one. We found that the Weep Hole under the water pump was leaking. Both the service manager and sales person acknowledged the leak, put more coolant in, I then test drove it.

On top of this, I found that low-gear would not engage. Once I came back, I told them about the gear issue, and the small leak was now a small puddle on the skid plate.  They started to take apart the machine to fix the gear issue and we thought also the leak. We waited inside where we met another salesperson, and this is when things started to become really fishy. He said that the bike had been traded in for an XXC 1000 about 2 months earlier and told an elaborate story about knowing the guy. Andy had told me that it was on consignment as of two weeks ago. My father and I started to doubt the integrity of the salesperson but had made the drive and were willing to work with them if they were going to fix the issues. We returned to the service area where I then asked the salesperson about the leak, and after he spoke with the service manager for a few minutes, he came back and to my surprise had changed his story. There was no longer a leak! I told him that he saw the leak, my father and I saw the leak, and that I would not purchase the machine until the leak was fixed. He then proceeded to get nastly with my father saying that he had been riding quads for a long time and there was no leak. As he was talking, the machine was leaking coolant from the water pump visibly. We pointed this out him, and he only continued to get nastier and nastier until we told him we would not be purchasing the machine. Come to find out this is a common issue and both the waterpump seal and oil seal must be replaced quickly or the issue will get worse and could permanently damage the engine. The repair cost was over $1,000 and would take approximately 5 hours for the work to be completed because the engine must be lowered and the bottom end needed dismantling to get to the seals. They obviously did not want to do this and the machine is still for sale and being advertised as "Excellent Condition".

All in all, we were lied to by the salesperson. We were told the machine was in excellent condition, and it had been wrecked, would not engage low gear, and had a serious coolant leak from the water pump. I wrote to the dealership itself and told the sales manager, and have not received any response. The ATV is still for sale on ATVTRADERONLINE, Craigslist, and their website. Buyer beware, if you look at this ATV for purchase, we found these issues without even getting to check the oil or other parts of the machine. Also, they showed me that there was approximately 400 miles on the odometer, and now they are advertising 525! This means that they have since ridden the machine! When you take pictures of an ATV and adertise it for sale, you don't take it out for joy rides until sold. I would not recommend any business that would knowingly give false information in order to sell their product.