SecondCor521
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Hi all.
We're checking with attorneys but also asking here for opinions and thoughts.
My son bought a PHEV last fall. Over the past two months, it started to have an intermittent charging problem which was becoming more and more frequent.
He took it to the dealership in our city. The dealership diagnosed the problem and said it was covered under a recall, to which my son assented.
A few days later they asked where the car was registered, and my son told them it was registered in Idaho. They then said that the recall only applied to cars registered in certain states not including Idaho. Therefore the repair would be $3K.
My son then said he wanted additional information from the dealership repair tech as to the likelihood of it fixing the problem. At this point the dealership said that it would fix the problem...because they had already done the work to his car.
All of this is memorialized in text messages.
Things that seem to be true:
1. It doesn't look like the dealership can put a mechanic's lien on his car because they didn't have him sign a written estimate.
2. The dealership is a well respected member of the local community. In fact, it's part of a dealership chain from which I and my father both have bought cars, including the one I drive now.
3. That being said, the current situation where they're asking him to pay $3K after the work was done strikes us as, uh, either slimy or incompetent or both. We're not sure if this affects just this service tech, or the service department, or the whole dealership.
4. A city police officer said they would not get involved over the repair bill because that would be a civil situation. But it does look like if the dealership refused to let my son take his car that would be grand theft on their part.
5. As you can probably tell, I've got my hackles up about this ("papa bear"). I do recognize intellectually that it's probably best to resolve this as amicably as possible without getting taken advantage of. I'll probably cool off as time passes.
6. Small claims limit in Idaho is $5K. (Car is worth maybe $15K; repair bill request is $3K.)
7. Not sure if it matters, but I am unable to find any relevant recall notice for his car for this type of problem on nhtsa.gov.
General advice and thoughts on how to proceed are welcome.
We're checking with attorneys but also asking here for opinions and thoughts.
My son bought a PHEV last fall. Over the past two months, it started to have an intermittent charging problem which was becoming more and more frequent.
He took it to the dealership in our city. The dealership diagnosed the problem and said it was covered under a recall, to which my son assented.
A few days later they asked where the car was registered, and my son told them it was registered in Idaho. They then said that the recall only applied to cars registered in certain states not including Idaho. Therefore the repair would be $3K.
My son then said he wanted additional information from the dealership repair tech as to the likelihood of it fixing the problem. At this point the dealership said that it would fix the problem...because they had already done the work to his car.
All of this is memorialized in text messages.
Things that seem to be true:
1. It doesn't look like the dealership can put a mechanic's lien on his car because they didn't have him sign a written estimate.
2. The dealership is a well respected member of the local community. In fact, it's part of a dealership chain from which I and my father both have bought cars, including the one I drive now.
3. That being said, the current situation where they're asking him to pay $3K after the work was done strikes us as, uh, either slimy or incompetent or both. We're not sure if this affects just this service tech, or the service department, or the whole dealership.
4. A city police officer said they would not get involved over the repair bill because that would be a civil situation. But it does look like if the dealership refused to let my son take his car that would be grand theft on their part.
5. As you can probably tell, I've got my hackles up about this ("papa bear"). I do recognize intellectually that it's probably best to resolve this as amicably as possible without getting taken advantage of. I'll probably cool off as time passes.
6. Small claims limit in Idaho is $5K. (Car is worth maybe $15K; repair bill request is $3K.)
7. Not sure if it matters, but I am unable to find any relevant recall notice for his car for this type of problem on nhtsa.gov.
General advice and thoughts on how to proceed are welcome.