Complaint Review: Expo Motorcars

I purchased a 2010 Mercedes CL 550 with 19K miles in December 2013 after exhaustive questioning and discussion with the dealership about the car. Paid $1K to ship the car covered from Houston to Pennsylvania. Deal was done rather quickly, which I appreciated, however, on the day that the car arrived, is when the problems started:

1 - Car came with only one key

2 - Car did not come with any manuals / paperwork

3 - Rear sunshade not working

4 - Rear brake light bulb not operating

About two hours after I received the car, I notified my sales rep. about the issues. As the car is still under factory warranty, 3 and 4 have been fully addressed by the local MB dealership (after almost a day of my time wasted, but at least it was all covered). The sales rep. told me that normally since everything gets ordered from MB, and that they only had the car in their possession for a short time, that key and books would be forthcoming. Here is where the real money starts to come in!!!

During the diligence period, the salesman told me that the tires were brand new, as the wheels were not original to the car, but swapped from an S-Class. A few days after receiving the car, I noticed (actually, the car's computer system alerted me) that the air in the front passenger side tire was low. I had assumed it was from the trip up and/or changes in temperature, so I filled it and moved on. As I only drove the care three or four times in the next month, I would learn that there was an even larger issue. After refilling the tire a few times, I finally took the car to a tire dealer (Tires Plus), who said that the tire was leaking air through a sidewall due to "whoever mounted the tires not knowing what they were doing" they showed me the tears in the sidewall, as well as a tear on the other front tire (they said it was low too and had to be replaced)!! They refused to fix the tires as they said it is against their policy because of where the issues were in the sidewall, but said they could gladly order replacements at $475 a piece!!!! I quickly got out of there and made an appointment with my trusted mechanic who handles all of my cars. In the meantime, I noticed that the front and rear tires were different styles, so I searched Tire Rack and found tires that matched the rear set, at a much more reasonable price. My mechanic ordered the tires and was going to install them for a total of $550. Great, so I am already down $550 not a month into this, when the car was supposed to come with new tires!!!

When my mechanic went to replace the tires (again, more time off work), he called me back to show me the BIG shocker!!!!! He confirmed that the sidewalls were damaged upon installation (said he had seen this mess before), but also showed me what he called an "unrepairable" crack and a major safety hazard in the front passenger side rim!!! Told me that it is $$$$ to get one from MB. He said that for a crack that big to appear, someone would have had to have popped a tire to stress the rim.

I once again followed up with the non-responsive folks at Expo Motorcar. I texted my sales rep with all this news, as well as to ask about the key (which MB already told me would be $400 to get one) to call me and I also left a message for the General Manager to call me as well. The call to the GM has yet to be returned, and the sales rep did not call, but rather gave me the courtesy of a text back saying that because "so much time has passed" (i.e., one month) that there is nothing he could do!! And then had the audacity to ask if I hit something that caused the rim to crack!!!!

That exchange was over a week ago, I have continued to text / leave messages but no returned calls. So between the key at $400, tires at $550 and a rim at "God knows what" I am out at least $1K on the low side and $3K on the high side. I have begun to look at EBAY for matching rims.

SO, IN CONCLUSION, this dealer has given me the runaround for over a month on things that I inquired of before I purchased the car, and notified him of on the very day I received the car, and has made NO attempt to resolve ANY of these issues that are costing me a small fortune - what a way to treat a customer after he spends over $50K with you in a single transaction!!!!! Unreturned calls and the runaround is all you get - lucky if you get a text acknowledging your existence!!! No key and tires/rim is a financial thing where they could easily make good. But selling this car with a cracked rim (installing it themselves nonetheless) was a safety hazard to me and my family and they should be ashamed of that, or worse!!!