My little brother bought a used 1995 Mitsubishi 3000GT SL last Friday that is an absolute lemon from one of those shadey side-of-the-road used car dealers. You know the kinda dealer I'm talking about. The ones who give you the creeps when you see them, and usually whipe their hands on their pants before shaking your hand, wear jeans and a sweatshirt embroidered with the name of their dealership, have slicked back greasy hair, are missing at least 2 teeth, have a trashy sort of accent/lingo, and always wear an expensive watch... as if the watch will make up for and mask the rest of their personal deficiencies and lack of morals.
We live in Massachusetts, and my brother (out of foolishness and naivity... him being a green-behind-the ears and very trusting college student) went and bought the car in New Hampshire where there is no Lemon law, spending his entire savings on it. According to New Hampshire law, you can buy a used car and it doesn't even have to be safe or in a condition that passes state inspection... and it's completely legal. Also.. to complicate matters, the dealer who he bought the car from is about 85 miles away from where my brother lives.
After not mentioning a single thing about the car purchase until after all the papers were signed and the check was cashed... My brother calls me this weekend and said his car was acting weird and the check-engine light was on and he was hoping I could help him. I could tell by his saddening, shakey tone of voice that he was very worried that he might be in a world of trouble. I told him to meet me at my sisters house so we could use her husbands garage to take a look at the car.
Here is what I found wrong with the car after performing an inspection, and he'd only had the car for 2 days at this point:
-Paint on body is badly swirled with plenty of chips, scratches, dents and small rust spots. The plastic on the headlights is also flaking and chipping away.
-Car was owned by a smoker at some point
-There are some missing a few insignificant interior panels for things such as covers to access panels for rear taillights, etc
-Car needs a new drivers side CV-joint within the near future
-Strut boots are torn and falling off on both front struts, and the struts will likely need to be replaced soon
-The dealer was supposed to have done the front brake pads and turned the rotors prior to my brothers picking up the vehicle... this was not done, as the pads have about 2 or 3mm left on them and the car makes a pretty bad reverb noise when braking, due to warped or uneven rotor surface. You can tell by looking at the rotors that they weren't turned.
-The dealer was supposed to have fixed the power antenna, which does not work at all. It was not repaired and still does not work and needs at least a new mast, if not the entire assembly.
-The Check engine light goes on and off intermittently
-The engine is hesitating sporadicly and bucking
-The engine is making a slight knocking noise at lower RPM's that sounds like it could possibly be a rod knock.
-My brother was in a parking lot the other day and as people were walking in front of him and the car was in neutral, the engine started revving uncontrolleably so that the RPM's were bouncing off the rev limiter without him pushing down on the accelerator. He shut the car off, started it back up and it did it again. After shutting it off a second time, it no longer did this. Naturally, the people walking in front of his car got very scared and started looking at my brother as if he was some kinda fuckin psycho and yelled at him.
-After opening the hood, I discovered a bungee cord underneath the airbox going between 2 components in the engine. I don't know why it was there, because it didn't seem to be holding anything that wasn't already stationary in place.
-There is a slight fade-imprint on the rear bumper where there was sticker-lettering from the previous owner. If you look closely at it, you can make out "Vicaro Motorsports". I wouldn't doubt if the previous owner was racing this car every week or had it on the bottle(NOS).
On top of all this, my brother picked the car up and the tank was on Empty.. Almost completely out of gas. The dealer supposedly also changed the timing belt and water-pump, per my brothers order... but I'm not sure if this was done or not, despite the fact that he left the old parts in the trunk as my brother asked(He may have just took a random used timing belt and waterpump and stuck it in the trunk). The car also has new tires on it as was also demanded by my brother prior to the sale.
I told him that he needs to make the dealer fix everything that is wrong with this car or preferably negate the sale. Supposedly the dealer offers a 30 day warranty on his used cars(as he told my brother), but his site says that he gives a 90 day warranty on all sales. Whether it's 30 or 90, he has to make sure this asshole pays to fix everything that is immediately wrong with the car.
Now.. to make matters worse... my brother tried to register the car today and the DMV would not allow him to do so. They said that there is a discrepency in the title with the previous owners or something of that nature. My brother didn't really understand the full nature of the problem but he was incredibly distraught and sounded like he was as close to being on the verge of tears as a straight male can be.
I'm going to try to see if I can get a contact for a good lawyer from my friends father who mostly specializes in local domestic cases.... so we can get this hideious abomination nullified.
Just thought I'd share with you guys/gals, because we are on a car enthusiasts message board.
Here's a link to the car(it actually looks decent in the pictures, surprisingly.. but not nearly this good in person):
http://www.autotrader.com/dealers/dda/detail.jsp?result_car_id=196143312&dealership_view _name=was&car_id=196143312&dealer_id=54681720
My Brothers Lemon
