UPDATE: As you can see, after I posted my review, the dealership almost immediately responded - inviting me to please contact their General Manager, David Dean, so they could rectify the situation. I called 3 times and left a message - no response. So I filed a claim with the Attorney General's Office, who accepted my claim and contacted the dealership. I received word yesterday that Autonation Ford Bellevue refused to take any responsibility for selling me a car that had severe mechanical problems and has cost us thousands of dollars. If you are considering purchasing a car from any Autonation dealership in Washington, I encourage you to contact the AG's office and ask to see my complaint. They had zero intention of making this situation "right" and so I say again: DO NOT BUY A USED CAR FROM AUTONATION!!! Writing this review gives me absolutely no pleasure, but I feel that I need to get this information out there for all people who are considering purchasing a used car from AutoNation Ford, Bellevue. In the spring of this year, we needed to purchase our son a car. He is a college student who had an internship that put him in constant contact with people in the upper echelons of Eastside society. Because of this, we felt he needed a somewhat “status” car – and the used BMW we bought from AutoNation Ford, Bellevue, was all we could afford. And initially, we were very pleased. The salesperson we worked with was very nice and the finance guy was very accommodating and able to get us better financing than we had expected. Because the car was somewhat old (2006) we also purchased an after-market warranty plan. There was one small issue with a service light shortly after we drove the car off the lot, and the dealership had my son bring the car in, gave him a loaner, and fixed the problem. Fast forward about a month – all of a sudden several service lights went on in the car. We called about it and they had us take the car into AutoNation BMW, Bellevue, for service. There they found that the car needed $6,000+ in repairs – an amount more than half of what we paid for for the car. The warranty covered $4,000 of the repairs, thank goodness. We then had the service department prioritize the remaining needed repairs. As we have 2 kids in college, we could only afford at that time to have about $800 worth of the repairs done, figuring we would get the rest of the repairs done at a later date. So I stewed about this situation for a long time and decided to write a letter to the General Manager, with a cc: to the Sales Manager and the CEO of AutoNation. I didn’t really ask for any type of remedy but the “crickets” as a result of the letter were disappointing. Still, we made an appointment & my son took the car in for the remaining repairs – for which we were expecting to pay about $1,400.00. My son got a call that the car was ready, but shortly after I received a call that upon putting everything back together, they discovered another problem, which was going to be an additional $1,600.00 – for a total service bill of $3,000.00. Well, we didn’t really have any other option than to have it repaired, as we didn’t want my son breaking down. At that time, I lost it. I phoned the General Manager and left a message re: my fury at the entire situation and asking him to call me back to discuss possible remedies. Surprise, surprise – crickets. So that is why I am leaving this review here and elsewhere. I am also going to be filing a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office. (As an aside, the additional problem they found ended up being easier to repair than originally expected, so the total bill as a result of this visit was a little over $2,000.00) I am well aware of the concept of “caveat emptor” (buyer beware) and that BMWs can be very expensive to repair. I also suppose AutoNation is not obligated to do a thing about this situation. I just have to believe, though, that either the “inspection” they do of used cars is cursory and limited to cosmetic issues, which is really disappointing, or that the inspection they did do made them aware of the issues and they chose not to tell us – knowing full well that we would not have purchased the car had we know the extent of required repairs. We are now having to look at trading this car in and getting my son a more reliable car – and letting everyone we know, including my son’s fraternity brothers (who are all about to enter into the local job market) not to purchase a car, a used car, anyway, from AutoNation.
Bonnie Lindstrom
Dec 1, 2016