Well,It Was A Good Day Today

[UncleLar]

after a bad one yesterday. For the good news I went to Ziggy's Mufflers in Norridge today and ended up getting a set of Magna Flow tailpipes installed in place of the stockers. They're sweet,high polished stainless steel,look just like chrome,same diameter and slash cut angle with a rolled edge and straight thru. They made up a set of hangers so I could save the original tp's and it cost me a total of $129.54 for the pipes,hangers and installation. They sound pretty good. cordoba1 stopped by to see my DTR and show me his SB and he has a set of deletes that were installed by Dennis Reinhart when he had it there for the chip,dyno tune and 4:10 gear install and for some reason his has a slightly deeper more mellow tone than mine,the only thing I can figure is maybe because his has been tuned and has a bit richer mixture. I've been building and riding Harley's for a long long time and can usually tell when one is running fat or a bit lean by the sound,fat sounds a bit deeper,so maybe that's the difference. Either way,I'm happy as schizz with my first mod.
The bad news is about yesterday. I had the car at my dealer for some service and commented that the front turn signals/side marker lights seemed loose. The service manager looked at it and the nuts inside on both sides were loose,then he looked at the hood hinges and found some witness marks on the right hinge. Thar set off his warning bells and as soon as they got the car in the air we went in and he showed me the front header panel had a good size crack in it.The car had some cheapo outfit background check done on it by Arlington Hts. Ford and the car showed clean. We then ran another check on Auto Check which is reputed to be much more accurate in Illinois than Car Fax.Again the record came up clean but much more detailed showing when the plates were renewed each year.So evidently the woman had some sort of accident and didn't report it to the police or her insurance and had the car somewhat halfazzed repaired by someone.A call to Arlington Hts. Ford and the salesman says "not their problem",then says he'll talk to the used car manager and call me back. So he calls back and it's the same story,they got the car in a trade from another dealer and when they "checked" it they made sure the frame was straight and that was that.I said hey,you had me sign a paper stating my trade not only didn't need any repairs,but that it'd never been in an accident and this what I get from you? His reply again was "well,we got the car from another dealer and we can't do anything".
So,from what I've been told the header panel is somewhat of a structural member on the car and now I'm wondering what else if anything was jury rigged "repairing" it and I'm wondering about how safe it might be if I were to get into an accident. I'm looking at 2 different body shops to bring it into and have it ripped apart and gone over with a fine tooth comb and then repaired correctly. There is no evidence of a really hard hit as both fenders are still original and haven't been repainted and the frame and suspension shows zero signs of damage.The car steers fine,drives straight with no pulling or clunks,etc and pulls straight when braking so I think the initial damage was relatively minor but I'll know more once it's torn down. Nice,I get a "decent" car at a fair price and now it has to be torn apart,repaired and I won't have a car to drive for however long. Am I PO'd? You betcha:mad2: Will I ever deal with Arlington Heights Ford again? Hell no,and if you're smart you won't either!It seems they won't stand behind what they sell and repair a car that could possibly be more hazardous in an accident due to some of the safety systems not functioning properly due to shoddy/incomplete previous damage and repairs. This ain't over yet,it's only the start.

[Marauderjack]

Sorry for your discovery but in ALL cases "BUYERS BEWARE!!":eek: This applies even more in dealer to dealer sales!!!:rolleyes:

Most dealerships don't even have qualified folk to inspect and "Certify" any car....they rely solely on Carfax, Oasis or something similar??:confused:

My Dodge truck has front fender repair that most would not notice and certainly isn't serious except it was not reported before!!:argue: It wouldn't have stopped the sale but I would have lowered my offer had I noticed it!!:cool:

Your car is OK and can most likely be put back to "Perfect" quickly and to your satisfaction at minimal expense....I hope!!:beer:

Good luck with your repair(s) and let us know what is done!!

Marauderjack:burnout:

[Haggis]

Sorry to hear about your misfortune my kilt wearing, sheep-inard eating brother. If you have a paper that they signed stating that the vehicle was never in an accident and yet it was see a lawyer and hopefully you can get the dealer to pay for the repairs.

[Zack]

Sorry to hear about your misfortune my kilt wearing, sheep-inard eating brother. If you have a paper that they signed stating that the vehicle was never in an accident and yet it was see a lawyer and hopefully you can get the dealer to pay for the repairs.

:rofl:

You know that pinhead doesnt like to be made fun of :bigcry:

Classic Gordon!

edit: this has nothing to do with UncleLar

[Haggis]

:rofl:

You know that pinhead doesnt like to be made fun of :bigcry:

Classic Gordon!

edit: this has nothing to do with UncleLar

And here I thought there was no problem between him and I. Well he is nothing, but a hipocrite M*****F*****.

I was sent the message by a secert informer and if I tell you who it was I will have to kill you.

[ckadiddle]

Sorry to hear about what you found Lar. That really sucks. Might want to call a local tv station action reporter and see if they are interested in your story. ;)

[KillJoy]

Sorry to hear about what you found Lar. That really sucks. Might want to call a local tv station action reporter and see if they are interested in your story. ;)


I agree. Bad Press can do wonders at getting things done!!!

:up:

KillJoy

[Breadfan]

Sorry to hear about your story! Sounds like the car will turn out OK, but it's still difficult to find out about it after the fact, and sounds like the support you received from the dealer is pretty poor!

That reminds me, about a year ago I helped my folks buy a used Jeep Grand Cherokee. It's what they wanted, and we were going to look at a few that were low mileage and a year or two old.

Well, long story short at one dealer we were shown a 2005 Grand Cherokee that had a "clean CARFAX" according to them.

As soon as we started looking at the car the signs were there - marred fender bolts, overspray behind the fender, tear in the rear bumper (from towing), etc etc.

The salesguy goes "So what do you think?" I go "This car has been wrecked."

He goes "What? No it hasn't, like we said it has a clean CARFAX, this car hasn't been wrecked!"

Me: "Look here, here, here, here, and here. It's plain as day."

Dealer: No words came out of mouth.

So just for fun we test drove it.

When I got back the salesguy comes proudly out of the office and goes "Hey, we realized we got our CARFAX reports mixed up! This one was actually in a very minor wreck but it's was minor and didn't cause much damage!"

Me: Laughter, noting of dealer name, and depature.

This wasn't a big dealer, so I wasn't half surprised, but I wouldnt' be surprised if even large dealers rely on the CARFAX. They'll place the liability of it on the report. I believe some may even knowingly sell a wrecked car with a clean CARFAX, just knowing the buyer will most likely never know - they may say, "so long as the car is safe and it was only a minor accident from our analysis, it's no harm". What percentage of buyers know how to spot the tell-tale signs? Probably very few.

As for that 2005, it was a junker otherwise. It had 20,000 miles yet had stained carpets, a ripped seat, scratches, etc. Whoever DID own it treated it like CRAP. The wreck probably was relatively minor, though it obviously needed a tow - either out of a ditch or a tow because it wasn't runninng.

(That reminds me, I could tell the AC condenser had been replaced but the system was never recharged - when I asked about this the guy said "well you know probably just needs a bit of freon that's normal.") Yeah all 2 year old cars need AC recharges, that's normal! Gimme a break!

The next day they bought a 2004 that has thusfar served them very well and they are happy with.

I was very bothered by the deal with the 2005, simply because while I had no problem seeing through their deceit there are MANY people who wouldn't be able to tell the difference and would've gotten snaked into buying that piece of crap.

So...end of story is to be careful out there.

At the same time, do not look at a car with a minor wreck in it's past necessarily as a lemon. They can get you a good deal sometimes and are often good as new.

[UncleLar]

It looks like the drama is over. Today I took the car to a top notch body shop I'm very familiar with and spoke to them.They brought the car in and put it up in the air and checked it out.They said although the car must've been in some sort of accident it was a fairly minor one.The frame and suspension was never damaged or repaired and other than the fact the header panel was cracked whatever damage there was was repaired correctly.The header panel is NOT a structural support member of the car and it was safe to drive and enjoy and that no safety/crash absorbent parts were bad or left out.They said if I wanted to be really fussy about it they'd r&r the panel but it was not something I needed to do or to worry about. So,that part made me much happier and relieved the anger and stress I'd been feeling.But I still feel as though the selling dealer could've done more for me than to just say what boiled down to "tough schizz".
BTW,of the few stock MM's I've driven this one is definitely the quickest strongest running one of them.Now I'm looking forward to doing some more mods,CAI,chip&dyno tune,Addco sway bars and after seeing corboba1's SB I think I want a Mustang chin spoiler too. I've got an idea for a different treatment of the trunk lid waterfall mod that'll probably raise a few eyebrows along with some interior mods I'd like to do.And of course the mods will probably never end,just like my Harley's,lol. And that's fine with me,after .
all,they say a Hot Rod is never done
Thanks to everyone for their help,suggestions,support and concern,it is/was appreciated.It sure is nice when complete strangers offer their help and support and that's been one big feature about this site that I've always liked.
Lar:cool::D

[MarkVI351]

Iggys is a good place.
I live 5 mins away from there.

[Haggis]

Good news Lar, now have some haggis and a glass of Scotch and celebrate Robbie Burns birthday.

:bagpipe3:

[UncleLar]

Thanks Haggis,I'm more in a mood to celebrate today than I was yesterday.

[Kirbster919]

I've never used them, but only heard good news from Iggy's.