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A DRIVER has been left $3,000 out of pocket after her dealership vanished when her new car broke down after just a day.
The baffled motorist said the ordeal felt like a “slap in the face” and accused the outlet of scamming her.
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Earleta Holmes, from Toledo, OH, was delighted with her car when she picked it up from Gold Star Auto.
But just a day later, she claims it developed an issue with the transmission.
Within 48 hours of buying the vehicle, she was reportedly back in the Gold Star showroom to try and get it repaired.
However, Ms Holmes claims that Gold Star refused to fix the issue.
Instead, they allegedly haggled repeatedly and referred her to warranty providers several times.
After plenty of running around, the frustrated driver decided to simply return the unusable car even though that left her out of pocket for several thousands of dollars.
She told WTVG: “If I’ve only had the car for 48 hours and it already has a bad transmission you have to have known that before you sold it to me.
“That put me so far behind, not having a car for like three months I didn’t have car.
“I had to pay for rentals.
“I had to do what I had to do to get around.”
In an effort to get some recourse, Ms Holmes eventually took the dealership to court.
However, by the time the judge had awarded her $3,000 in compensation, Gold Star had already disappeared.
According to WTVG, the lot is now empty and the phone number listed at the site forwards to another showroom.
Gold Star’s lawyer also reportedly failed to respond to multiple requests for comment.
What makes a car a lemon?
Each law has different parameters on what defines a lemon, but generally, a car is lemon when it’s in the shop for longer than it’s on the road.
Progressive Auto Insurance describes a lemon as a car with “a significant defect or malfunction that makes it unsafe to drive,” though exact parameters vary by state. All 50 states have lemon laws covering new vehicles, but only seven have lemon laws to protect used car buyers.
Federally, however, consumers are protected under U.S. Code Chapter 50 covering consumer product warranties. In layman’s terms, the law dictates that consumers be compensated by the manufacturer when “multiple attempts to repair a vehicle under warranty fail.”
What to do if you think you bought a lemon:
- Research your state’s lemon laws and their exact parameters.
- Contact the dealership, especially if it’s still under factory warranty.
- If the dealership refuses to repair the issue, contact the Automotive Consumer Action Program or the National Automobile Dealers Association.
- Send a certified letter to the manufacturer with an explanation of the issue, with documentation and proof that you’ve contacted a dealership.
- Depending on the outcome, you can report the dealership to the DMV for selling a car that needs immediate repairs.
- Consider small claims court.
- Consult an attorney specializing in lemon law through the National Association of Consumer Advocates.
Source: Progressive Auto Insurance
This has left Ms Holmes unpaid and still without a vehicle.
But she said that the biggest insult was that Gold Star fought her so hard.
She added: “For them to pay an attorney, which was probably what they could have just paid me was the biggest slap in the face.
“You paid a retainer and you paid for that attorney to come down multiple times to just keep from paying me $3,000.”
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