Complaint Review: Concept Auto Inc. - Miami Florida

Purchased 2015 Nissan Sentra with Carfax report of minor accident with 7 year financing at 17%. Signed contract and multiple other photocopied documents. Was given copy of contract but not the other signed documents. Promised a one year warranty by Armando Portillo. 

Left with the Sentra and returned to pick up my registration and tag. Requested copy of signed documents and was told by Armando Portillo that everything that I signed was in the contract. Left again with the Sentra. Several weeks later was stopped by Metro Dade advising me that the passenger side headlight was not aligned. Took the car to Concept Auto and was told that it would be fixed on the spot. Spent about 3 hours waiting for the car and left. That night checked the headlight and it was still the same, except that there were scratches in the area around the headlight. Continued to drive the car and the air conditioner began to fail, transmission would at times not shift out of low gear, engine begn to vibrate and the check engine light came on. There was a loud thump heard from the passenger side front when I went over a speed bump. I took the car to Nissan and they immediately noticed that whomever repaired the car due the accident neglected to replace a brace which held the engine in place. They explained to me that the consequences of the missing brace was causing numerous problems and that the car had not been welded properly. All of the repairs before the sale of the car were performed by Concept Auto and then placed the car for sale. I do not know if they have a license to repair automobiles and have filed a complaint with the FTC. They are in violation of the Magnusom-Moss Warranty Act and Under the federal law, you can sue based on breach of express warranties, implied warranties or a service contract. 

Called numerous times to speak with Armando Portillo, who apparently has the final word but never comes to the phone which forces you to drive to the dealership. I live 45 minutes from there and I lose half a day from work due to the fact that there is no response from Armando Portillo and the entire staff at Concept Auto are trained, through fear, that Armando Portillo is always busy with a customer or not there. I drove to the dealership and spoke with Armando Portillo and explained the evaluation given to me by Nissan and I showed him the missing brace. He called the mechanic over and told him to order the part immediatley and took a picture with his phone of the missing part. Apparently he was worried of the consequences and danger of this missing part. He asked me to make a list of the problems and give them to the mechanic, which I did. The part was ordered and I called for a week to see if the part had arrived. It finally arrived and I took the car to the dealership and gave the list of problems to the mechanic (Jose). Waited hours and the car was given back to me with the assurance that all the issues I had written down were fixed, including the headlight. I checked under the hood and the brace, which is large, was placed to hold the engine. I left with the Sentra and nothing else was fixed, except for the engine brace. 

Again calls to Armando Portillo - no answer so once again I drove there and spoke with Portillo. He was very complacent and told me to bring the car on a Sunday so that the mechanics could look at the car first thing on Monday. I left and returned on a Sunday. I sent Armando Potillo and Mike Kvachuk an email will all the problems of the car and this was at the request of Armando Portillo, whose email address is MAX MAXIMO!! When I arrived -- he could not print up the email with the car problems -so I wrote them out again for the mechanic - in SPANISH. Left the car and returned a week later. I was shown the car and that everything had been fixed. The air conditioner was fixed and I assumed that all the other problems were also fixed after a week.

I drove the car home with a cooling air conditioner...nothing else was fixed - not even the headlight. The check engine light came on, the engine vibrating, the loud thump and the car would at times not shift out of low gear. Scary when you are on the expressway and cars are going 70 miles an hour!  Called again and again...No response to emails ot messages left for Armando Portillo and Mark Kvachuk. Once again, I drove the car to the dealership, on a Sunday as he had mentioned before to leave the car so that mechanics would jump on it first thing on Monday. So what does he say when I arrived. "You need to bring the car in when the mechanics are here." I could not believe it and got tired of the games played by this charlatan and left. That is when I decided to pursue legal avenues to prevent others from falling into the web and childish abuse of Max Maximo and the exploitation of the laws in Florida regarding the sale of used cars.

If you have a serious issue with Concept Auto and/or Armando Portillo regarding misleading information, breach of contract or a dysfunctional automobile, feel free to contact me and write in the rebuttal as I am preparing a lawsuit with several customers that have had similar issues, and the attorney is my brother-in-law so this should be interesting. The more people come forth -will cancel any arbitration. So let me know and good luck.