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The Motor Group Miami The auto group Scam Company Sold Vehicle With Blown Head Gasket (noticed within 24 hours) And Completely Ignored Issue Miami, Florida
F*k you motor group Miami
Background
Id been driving around an old unreliable Jimmy SUV for a couple of years. In recent months things were starting to fail on it, one after another and I figured for as much money as I was spending to keep my old car running, I could get something much newer and much nicer without having to worry if/when the next time the car was going to breakdown.
I looked into leasing or buying my dream car from a local dealer, but soon realized it was way, WAY
out of my price range. After selling my old truck, I scoured the internets for a good while to find the right vehicle. I was looking for something that ticked all of the awesome boxes in my mind brain, or even something close to it. Pouring over sites like craigslist, auto trader, yahoo listings, etc, looking at cars I couldnt hope to afford, I began to think Id made a terrible mistake by selling my Jimmy. And then, just before I gave up, after weeks of searching, I found it! The second choice for my ideal car had materialized on my screen in the form of an eBay auction. I could hardly believe it.
BMW, good so far. X5, sick. Few years old, Ill take it. 4.4L V8 engine, awesome! Navigation, DVD, panoramic sun roof, leather, sport package, cd changer, yes, YES! Yes to all of those things!
It was beautiful.
Gun metal grey, 19 inch staggered (larger in the back) wheels, quad exhaust, remote everything, and it was in my price range. Sheer unadulterated Awesomeness!
I bought the vehicle history report (what a great scam that is), and everything looked okay. I went for it and won!
I was beyond stoked! And even though the car was 2000 miles away, it was still mine.
But
the red flags started rearing their ugly heads.
RED FLAGS
1
Shortly after the auction ended I checked out the specs of the car, against the KBB value.
For the amount of features and miles it had, the cost was
significantly less than it should have been (on the order of about $5k
less). And buying from a dealer I started to get suspicious. Why
wouldnt they just hold onto the car to get the better price?
But I couldnt argue with a good deal.
2
I researched the dealership a bit, and found a video online
of someone who had been scammed by the same dealer, with the same type
of car.
Apparently, someone not naming any obvious names, had suspiciously
taped over the dashboard lights on the car in question and the guy who
had bought the vehicle didnt notice until he got it home.
But after watching his videos, the guy seemed like an idiot. Not
because he didnt open the car up right there on the spot before buying
it, or because he didnt take it to a local mechanic when he easily
could have to check out the vehicle. Its because as most people know,
whenever you start any car, all of the lights on the dash come on to
ensure the warning lights are working before you start driving anywhere.
That guy didnt notice that nothing on the dashboard lit up when he
turned the key, thats his own fault. What an a*s! Couldnt even get the
name of the company right.
I wasnt going to make the same mistake that guy did.
When I asked the dealer about it. They said that guy test drove the
car, bought it anyway, and then later noticed the lights on the dash
were f**ked (as if it wasnt entirely their fault). What struck me was
that they said it with such unconcern, so nonchalantly that it was sort
of reassuring in an odd way.
Still I pressed on.
3
They didnt accept paypal (the standard method of paying for eBay transactions).
Granted paypal does take out a pretty sizable chunk when the numbers
are that high, but it also offers the security of being able to charge
the money back if the purchase goes south. Nope. Wire transfers only.
Everyone, even the banker recommended against a wire transfer. But
Id already spent the $500 deposit, and I didnt want to lose that money
on the basis of a disagreement with their payment practices.
I wired the remainder into their account before Id even seen the car.
4
The shipping company they were pushing really hard was retarded.
Shipping a vehicle across the country is not cheap, but for some
reason, the company they recommended couldnt get their act together
enough to actually get the car shipped. Weeks I was waiting for them to
come back with a solid time of delivery or even pickup. And weeks later
they were still screwing around. Finally I got upset, told them to
fornicate themselves with an iron stick and blow me. I bought a plane
ticket to Florida with the intent to drive the car back myself.
Luckily the dealership had a pickup service from the airport.
5
At the airport, the dealership owner picked me up, in my own car and drove me back to finalize everything.
Which raised a few questions:
A) How many cars dont you have at your own dealership that
you need to be cruising around in the vehicle I bought to pick me up
from the airport, I mean thanks, but really?
B) Also, what the f**k are you doing picking people up from
the airport anyway? Dont you employ a lot of people? Dont you have a
billion better things to do with your time? I mean props for the
personalized service I guess, but, odd none the less.
6
The dealership had me re-sign all the paper work I had already signed and submitted.
Before flying to Florida, the dealership had me sign of ton of paper
work and receipts in line with common business practices. But when I got
there, they had me sign a bunch of other stuff I hadnt seen before.
As-is warranty stuff, papers I knew they would not have let me leave the
dealership with the car if I hadnt signed.
I didnt have much of a choice beyond signing the papers again, or leave without the car.
7
I asked to borrow the on-site mechanics diagnostic tool (a
little machine that plugs into the car that says if anything is wrong)
and the guy looked at me like I was insane.
A pretty innocent enough request when buying a used car, they have
on-site tools, why wouldnt they let me borrow them for a minute? I
later found out it was because he didnt speak English, but even after
telling him the same thing in Spanish he couldnt help me. The owner
came running out from his office as well, seemingly concerned I was
talking to his mechanic. After looking at it, found the oil in the car
was black. For a used car, its not uncommon to find dirty oil. But
selling a car from a dealership, with an on-site mechanic, why wouldnt
they have changed the oil? It would have cost them what, 10 bucks.
But maybe they were just being cheap.
8
It was clear the battery had recently been completely disconnected for a while.
This is an old trick that resets every warning light, every message,
and every clock, everything on the vehicle that doesnt have its own
power source. Its something youd only know if you had to reset the
warning lights on your own car. There arent many explanations outside
of a completely dead battery that would warrant that sort of red flag.
Perhaps they replaced the battery before selling the car.
9
The administrative girl I was talking to kept trying to get me to sign up for an extended mechanical warranty.
She recommended it for in the event that something did go wrong with
the car, that it would be covered under a certain amount. Which sounded
cool, but it was something crazy like $500 for 30 days or something, and
I passed.
Id had my run arounds with extended warranties in the past, and I figured they were just trying to get more money out of me.
10
They didnt have the title for the car.
What dealership sells a car without a title? They explained that they
had bought the car from an auction (which is pretty normal for used car
dealers) and that they had to wait until the title came in before
giving it to me.
I guess thats a common thing though.
11
The administrative assistant issued good feedback for me on
the ebay in front of me and asked me to issue them positive feedback in
front of her.
I made some excuse and hastily left. What an odd operation.
Apparently they were really proud of their 100% positive feedback and
used that as a selling point for the vehicle, but upon closer inspection
of the feedback, it was all from s*t they had bought on ebay, and
rarely was it for things they had sold.
Too bad their sterling reputation is going to be fked if they try and pull one over on me.
12
The emails that I had been receiving from them went right into the junk folder in Gmail.
In itself, thats not a huge deal, but that only happens because
enough users had classified her emails as spam. How odd. Why would you
keep using that same email, and what had you been using it for to the
point that all messages within gmail would classify it as spam (Thats
the computer guy in me talking).
Still not enough of a reason to pass on a deal.
13
Just before leaving the Owner ran out and said that he had just topped up all of the fluids, so I shouldnt have any problems.
Any problems? What the f**k was he talking about? What a weird last thing to say.
The Decision
Fk it, Ive got a pretty above average knowledge of car maintenance. I checked the car out from top to bottom, what I could see anyway, and it was AWESOME with a capital A. And if I didnt want to take the car, I only had bought the one way plane ticket there, what was I going to do? Have the dealership owner drive me back to the airport in my own car, buy a last minute ticket home, get back with no car, then sue the dealership for a couple of odd things? Try explaining that one to your friends.
So why didnt you buy the car?
Their emails went to spam
is that code for something?
Despite the red flags, there wasnt anything definitive, no singular logical reason that would have prevented me from buying the car at the time.
Nope, I took the keys and drove it right over to an auto parts store to borrow their diagnostic tool. Plugged it in, checked it out, and sure enough, it was right as rain. No tape over the dash lights this time.
It was great. Great was an understatement. It was super duper, califragalisticawesomeness in car form. Sweet stereo, sweet nav, it felt cool, drove like a dream, and it was mine!
The next day (less than 24 hours later) the heat stopped working, so I brought it into an AAS certified mechanic shop with a very cheerful lady behind the counter to run a few standard diagnostic tests , maybe change the oil, and suss out the issue with the heat. An hour later that cheery lady behind the counter came back with a sullen look on her face, the kind that you see when your mom is about to tell you that your dog ran away or your guinnie pig just died.
She called me out to where the mechanic had the car hoisted up on a lift to break the bad news to me. How bad could it be, I thought. Heat? I can live without it for a couple months, hell my other car didnt even have AC, whats the difference.
Well, it looks like your head gasket is blown
the mechanic said with noted indifference.
I paused for a second to make sure Id heard that right and asked him to explain a bit more. For those that dont know cars, well, thats the sign of death for most vehicles. If it was your doctor, it would be equivalent to hearing:
Well, it looks like you have terminal cancer
It usually means that the engine inside the car needs an absolute fk ton of work to be back to working normal again. Which threw me for a loop because theres usually some sort of sign when this type of thing happens. A rough running car, some oil leaks, coolant in the engine, something.
And we cant change the oil because it opens us up for a ton of liability if we do, theres probably some stop leak in there you shouldnt get rid of at this point
All at once a ton of things started to make sense. The extended warranty, the oil, the fluids comment, the new as-is papers they had me sign, the mechanic, the price, even the shipping company, all of it. If I hadnt driven it home, I probably wouldnt have noticed the problem for a couple thousand miles.
And if you want to fix it, its going to be between $6000-$12000, we wont know how bad it is until we get in there
I was floored.
You cannot be serious
It was literally the last thing I had expected him to say. I would have sooner believe the December Apocalypse was running a bit late had just begun outside which was affecting my heat.
Opp, dead serious. But as long as you keep oil and coolant in it, you should be able to get it home. I wouldnt drive it if you dont have to though
They gave me a couple gallons of coolant and an old screw driver to add when needed and sent me on my way.
That was a quiet rest of the drive home. Even driving it away I still didnt believe him. I brought it to 4 other mechanics, including the BMW dealership to confirm the diagnosis, and they all came back with the same answer.
FKED!
I was in the same god d**n broken boat I was in before. After learning just how very fked I was, I was closer to home than I was to the place Id bought it from in Florida, so I carried on and gave the dealership I bought it from the benefit of the doubt. My initial reaction was to sue immediately. Report them to the police, and contact every person they sold cars to to see if they had a similar experience. But cooler heads prevailed. I run a business too, and I know sometimes s*t happens. I simply sent them a nice email instead to let them know what Id discovered and politely asked them for help.
A week went by with no response, so I sent them a follow up email asking them to address my concerns. Finally I got a response from the owner asking for quotes from mechanic shops and photos of the damage. Photos? Of a blown head gasket. You want photos from inside the engine.
sure guy, Ill see what I can do.
I got a few estimates which totaled just over 15k. My awesome car was turning into an awesome lawn ornament. I sent off the requested info to the original dealer and still hadnt heard back for a few days. So I messaged the administrative assistant again, who explained to me that the owner was travelling and wouldnt be back in until the next Monday.
Time, and more importantly temporary registration was running out as was my patience. I didnt want to spend the money to register the vehicle if it was going to die. So I did the only logical thing. I told on them.
More to the point, I submitted a complaint to ebay. If ebay wasnt such a boss I may have lost the money on the car entirely. Their buyer protection is whats up for sure. And Daniel Roth
of Birmingham Alabama is the absolute s**t. Basically if a seller on ebay misrepresents a vehicle, or has undisclosed engine damage (within a certain age), ebay either buys thecar back or helps fix it. Either way, still cool.
UPDATE: eBay took down the negative feedback left for this auction, not cool eBay.
What isnt cool is the fact that this guy is going to continue to get away with selling fked up cars to idiots like me.
All I wanted was something that worked and was cool. Didnt know that was beyond the realm of possibility. I gave these people every chance to make things right and they wrote it off like it was nothing. Not even an email.
AND
After I bought the car, the dealership lied about how much they sold the car for on their website to make it seem like it sold for less than it did. Whats dicks.
UPDATE: Less than 24 hours after this site went live, the listing for the vehicle on their website with the false sale
price was taken down.
My lawyer has advised me to omit the names of the people and the business involved to avoid a potentially libelous situation. But FK THAT! This car was bought from Francisco Osorio (aka Frank Osorio) of the Motor Group and JOHANNA ALVAREZ (aka Johanna Alvarez) of the Motor Group in Miami Florida. This site is dedicated to them. Dont make the same mistake I did.
DO NOT BUY A CAR FROM THESE PEOPLE
Fk You Motor Group Miami.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
coast
USANever buy a vehicle sight unseen
#2Consumer Comment
Mon, February 04, 2013
Your red flag #1 could have been avoided if you had done your research prior to purchase. You made fun of the guy in your red flag #2 but you did the same thing by not viewing the dashboard lights prior to purchase. You ignored eBay's warning, "eBay discourages the use of offline transactions, including payments made via Moneygram or Western Union. These types of payments are often associated with fraudulent transactions" so your red flag #3 is also your fault. You agreed to the "As-is warranty stuff" so I'm sure your attorney told you: Happy Motoring in your new car.