Buyers Beware!! late model Canadian trucks.


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Posted by Jonas on August 07, 2000 at 11:35:18:

Just a note to everyone about how I almost got forked last week with a very expensive P.O.S. Dodge Cummins truck.
Went to a dealership last week to look at a '98 QC Cummins Dodge, with a 5 spd and all the trimmings. Test drove it for a while with no problems. Looked under the hood and at the rear end and transfer case for leaks and signs of mechanical problems. Found none. Looked in the glovebox and found extremely detailed mantinence record in the owners manual up to 65k mi, no mantinence was recorded after that and the truck has 72k mi on it. (this should have clued me in to a problem but I was starry eyed) I looked like a great rig so we went inside and started haggaling price. The owner of the dealership happened to be there and he got in on it. More records were brought out stating that the truck had been imported from Canada to be sold at auction which is where this dealership had picked it up. I was assured that a safety and mechanical check had been preformed by the auction company and another one by the dealership. I bought the rig with a limited warranty.
15 miles away from the dealership the temp gauge pegged out! I pulled over and put it in neutral and within a few seconds the temp returned to normal. At this point I'm livid. I called the dealership and everone had left for the evening so I made the rest of the trip back to my home (62mi) without incident. Next day I checked all aspects of the cooling systen and found nothing out of the ordinary. Got out the creeper and did a major underside inspection. I found the left front ball joints had been replaced, and that the right side sway bar link was snapped in half, the right front inner axle seal was slinging 90wt. Engine and tranny looked fine. Transfer case looked like it had some work done on it. At the point where the frame is boxed, I found the frame was packed with mud the consistency of concrete!! I called the owner of the dealership and told him what happened. He told me to bring it in and have a look. At this point I'm freaking out because I have my butt hanging out on the limited warranty where they are only required to pay 50% of the repair costs.
Before driving it back to the dealarship I gave it another once over. I ran the vin# with the carfax and it came back clean.
Upon delivery of the truck to the dealership I had the oppourtunity to talk to the service manager. He informed me that the dealership would pick up 100% of the repair costs and that they did not sell broken trucks. They would make it right. I told him the problems and about the mud in the frame. He went straight to the drivers door and opened it up to look at the Canadian Maple leaf on the door.
"This might be your problem."
To break it down this is what happens. Guy lives in a flood zone and his truck goes for a swim. It still runs so he takes it and cleans it up to trade in on a new one. Truck dosent sell because everyone knows what happend to it so it gets sold at canadian prices to an auctioneer who imports it. The truck still has a clean title history. Truck is bought way below wholesale by a dealership rep. and then sold to one of us consumers. The dealerships dont know the history on the rig and it may very well pass a mechanical check.
I go home thinking well if they fix it it should be O.K. maby for awhile, I hope. I get a phone call from the dealership owner. He is a former diesel mechanic and he personally went and looked over the truck. Apparently the radiator was 1/2 full of junk also. I asked him what he thought about everything. He said:
"I think we should find you a different truck. I will rip up your Purchase Order and we'll try again."
I'm lucky, he could have really hammered me if he wanted to or did'nt care. Maby he took it back because the amount of money it would take to fix it would kill his profit margin. Who knows?
I think I'm just going to keep driving Old Blue ('67 W-200) around for awhile.




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