Chapter 1: A New Car Lemon Story

Fifth Visit: More Runaround with a Lie

The next day, Mrs. Jones took the car to the recommended dealership. She told the service writer the whole unpleasant history, including what the manufacturer’s customer service agent had suggested. The service writer said, "I understand, but we can’t work on your car. You have to have it worked on by the people who sold it to you."

This is not true in most states.
No repair order written at second dealership.

No matter what Mrs. Jones said, the service writer insisted that she take the car back to the selling dealership.¹⁴ The second dealership didn’t write a repair order, even though Mrs. Jones had presented the vehicle for repair.¹⁵ Mrs. Jones brought the car home and told her husband what happened.

Sixth Visit: Enter the Specialist

Date: 1/26
Mileage = 12,220
Days in Shop = 10
Total Days in Shop = 33

Mr. Jones called the manufacturer’s Consumer Hotline again. He told the manufacturer’s customer service agent that they better stop messing around with his wife, telling her to go here, go there; he was darn well tired of it. The agent said, "I understand. What I want you to do is take the car to a different dealership. We have a field technical specialist there who will investigate the problem."¹⁶

Bring on the engineers, the specialists: more flimflam.
Once again, no repair order was written at the third dealership.

Mrs. Jones called the third dealership and was given an appointment two weeks later. When she dropped off the car, she wasn’t given an opportunity to describe the problems to the field technical specialist-in fact, she never even saw the specialist. Again, no repair order was written.

14. See chapter 8, 113, More on Accurate Repair Orders.
15. See chapter 7, 92, No Repair Order Is Written.
16. See chapter 7, 94, Try a Different Technician.

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