<VV> No Corvair, but car related - There is no "C" in "BBB"

[Charles Lee at Proper Pro Per]

My mother bought a car with "very low mileage" (5 years old w/ 25K) and paid 
extra because of that.

However, the car would veer to the left when braking, but when checked out 
=by the dealer, the dealer said the brakes were fine.

They agreed to repair it but she would have to pay for the repair, and they 
would not do it on warranty.

My mother finally nearly crashed into a local car repair garage, who checked 
it out (glad to have survived the imminent crash into his stall, but my 
mother managed to stop a few feet short of that !)

He found the disc brake pistons were frozen, and agreed to fix it (for a 
fee), but did agree to put it in writing when told of the warranty at a 
local dealer.

My brother and I then checked the car out, and when we removed the wheels, 
found a lug stud broken on EACH of the four wheels, and then, under the 
dash, found a label showing that the speedometer had been replaced at 70 K, 
so the odometer reading of a "low" 25K was really 95 K !

When asked about the broken lug nut studs, the head mechanic at the 
dealership said (no kidding) "That's why they have five on each wheel. You 
don't really need that many" !!!!!

When asked about the speedometer being replaced, he feigned ignorance, which 
later turned out to be his downfall. (You or I can plead ignorance about 
such things, but a dealership has legal responsibilities to know !)

When shown the other mechanics statement that the brakes were frozen, he 
tried to say it happened after we bought the car (in 3 weeks ?!?!?!), and 
then blamed it on the high mileage !  (Remember, we paid top dollar because 
of the LOW mileage ?)

We initiated a civil suit against the dealer  because of the speedometer 
being changed and not being advised of it by the dealer.

We then went to the BBB and made a complaint and had to make several 
complaints before they would do anything about it, and finally the dealer 
capitulated and paid for the brakes that we were forced to have fixed by the 
"other" mechanic. (This was one of the reasons that the BBB balked at 
processing the complaint.  Remember that the "B" in BBB is for "Business." 
There is no "C" for "Customer" in "BBB" !)

We finally got her money back, but what an ordeal !!!!!

A few months later, I called the BBB to ask if there were any complaints 
about that dealer, and was told there were none !  I then admitted that I 
had filed a major complaint with the BBB about that dealer and that other 
potential customers should be made aware of them, and they said that it was 
not considered a complaint, since it was resolved !

The fact that we had to involve the civil courts, almost two months of 
fighting, and my mother being involved in what could have been a very bad 
accident, were not relevant to the BBB.