Birchwood - bad dealership?

We had gone in to Birchwood to talk about the rust on quarter panels that had come back one month after they were to have fixed it. It turns out that in order to fix it properly, they would have to replace the entire door assembly and they feel that that cost’s too much for them. Even though this was something that they had approved as a condition of us buying the van, and that had delayed us for a week in picking up the car as they sent it off to get fixed, they don’t want to do it. Not that they are saying that they can’t do it, just that they don’t want to.

We explained to them that, one of their managers approved this and if they had an issue with that manager’s decision, they should take it up with them. Also, if they had sent this off to get fixed and the place merely painted over the rust instead of fixing it, that is something that they could take up with the body shop.

They were thinking of just giving us some minor financial compensation. We proposed that, since they had said that they would fix this, but now don’t want to, we could take the amount it would take to get fixed. They explained that this cost was almost what we had paid for the vehicle and that they didn’t think that was fair to them.

Shan also proposed that they could give us another similar vehicle in a straight trade for this one that they sold us under false pretenses. They had two other Windstars on the lot – both newer. They were all excited to show us them and were ready to make the trade because they weren’t listening and thought that we would pay then another $6000 for the difference. When Shan repeated that we would do a straight trade but not pay more, they were less enthused about the idea. You have to wonder at their mentality – “I know that we lied about fixing this vehicle that we sold you, but how about giving us that one back, plus more money again, and we’ll give you a newer vehicle that will be fine this time, we promise”. Isn’t that the whole definition of bait-and-switch?

Andrew wasn’t able to make that kind of decision so he had to get his manager to call Shannon back. When he did the next, he basically offered her the same deal that she had already turned down. So we’ll have to go back and see them after the holidays. At least we have out vehicle back. Since they weren’t fixing it after all, they didn’t see the need to keep paying for a rental.