A protest and request for comments and suggestions!

Nickrick2641 · Jun 29, 2009, 08:19 PM

Please read this and explain to me what I should do in this situation.

On Tuesday June 22, 2009, I went into my dealership Route 10 Mitsubishi in Randolph, NJ. I asked them when I could I get the car checked out once more. The rear wheels were rumbling, and humming loudly at highway speeds, and the cruise control kept turning off on me. They told me to send it in Monday the 29th.

I worked throughout the day in the vehicle, but while on the highway, at 65-70 MPH, I felt the right side of the vehicle start to drag, immediately afterwards, I heard a tire screeching (presumably the rear right tire). Naturally I got nervous and started to the far right lane and brake. Before I could even react however, my other rear tire locked up upon pressing the brakes, causing me to go into a spin-out. Nearly avoiding an 18-wheeler, the car ended up facing backwards on the shoulder lane. Soon afterwards smoke started flowing out the front hood. Shocked and out of breath, I immediately called Roadside Assistance to get my Lancer towed.

Much to my surprise, the towing service was going to bring my car to the nearest Mitsubishi dealer, which was Route 22 Mitsubishi in North Plainfield, NJ. The towing service came, did their job, and brought me to the dealership.

The car was checked the next day, and according to the technician, who worked on it, reported that it was “running as designed.” I asked him, “So it’s designed to lock up at 65MPH and send the car into a spinout?” We took the car back to our home, and the following day we brought it to Route 10 Mitsubishi.

Unfortunately, Route 10 Mitsubishi officially closed, due to the failing sales and showroom closings across America. However, they informed us that from now on our dealership was to be Route 46 Mitsubishi in Totowa, NJ.

We sent the vehicle to the dealership, and within a day they called us to let us know that they were going to replace the hubs, to fix the loud humming problem, and the smell and smoke came from the clutch was something they could not assess at the time.

Convinced that this dealership had fixed at least one of my problems on my Lancer, I drove it home today, however I was disappointed to hear the rumbling and howling sound of my rear tires again, and a constant vibration and odd feeling while shifting gears. Another alarming thing was that my clutch was nearly worn out to the end, prior to the spin-out; it was not worn out at all.

I have been in the dealership (Rte 10) on previous accounts for the transmission and for failure of the electronics in my Lancer. But I am not getting the right service for my car, and something is certainly wrong with it.

My question is, what should I do? Apply for the Lemon Law, and if so, how? Call Mitsubishi Motors of America and complain about the lack of service? I’m running out of options of what to do, and my car nearly caused an accident in which I nearly got killed. So please send in your comments, suggestions, and if there is anything else I should provide here let me know.

Thanks,
Nick

MasterAK · Jun 29, 2009, 09:49 PM

Is the handbrake working properly. I don't know what to suggest, maybe try another dealership. To my understanding to be eligible for the lemon law, the dealership has to try a certain number of times to fix the problem with no success. As for the clutch I feel like the OEM clutch is very soft and low quality. I don't burn it or launch the car and mine grabs somewhere near the top and I don't know how long it's gonna last.

Nickrick2641 · Jun 29, 2009, 09:55 PM

Hmm I see, I do believe that would be the case for my Lancer, it's clutch is nearly spent, I have a feeling the folks over in Route 22 Mitsubishi though torture tested it... they really gave the car a beating... i think.

kalpakiotis · Jun 30, 2009, 06:16 AM

Maybe you need to get a lawyer involved or at least threaten...if you have all your service slips for them looking at your car, and the police report from that spin out you can definitely press them pretty hard. This is something you will have to do with Corporate though. Chances are they will probably settle and give you a new car before you make it to court.

jRox · Jun 30, 2009, 02:19 PM

Not sure exactly what to do, but I may suggest bringing your car to another dealership. Bell Mitsubishi in Rahway, NJ. They're great guys over there.

evo_soul · Jun 30, 2009, 03:28 PM

Nick , I think you need to approach this from a better angle. Are the problems you are presenting here easy to duplicate. If so then I think you should make a video record of everything. I will play the flip side of this argument. If you are the dealership and you test the car and everything seems to check out its hard to decide what you do. There has to be a threshold of things wrong for them to commit to doing complex work on the car. Or if they have no idea where the failure is, they will not know where to start checking or replacing.

If possible, present them video evidence of what the problem is. keep a camera in your car at all times. if there is a smell of smoke, document, it, if there is unusally behaviour document it.

No need to get a lawyer just present yoru side of the story a little better.

The car was checked the next day, and according to the technician, who worked on it, reported that it was “running as designed.” I asked him, “So it’s designed to lock up at 65MPH and send the car into a spinout?” We took the car back to our home, and the following day we brought it to Route 10 Mitsubishi.

If he tested it and found nothing wrong... throwing a comment like that in his face is not going to help you situation. And to be honest.... it wasnt nice. That said if you dont think your getting the right service you can go to another dealership, or you can escalate to a higher power at Mitsubishi Corp.

These may or may not help. But its a place to start.

Good luck

Nickrick2641 · Jun 30, 2009, 10:30 PM

Evo_soul:

I do understand that it was rather unpleasant of me, to have reacted with such a comment, but I was still shaken up from te day before and he spoke to me like as if I had been wasting his time with my vehicle. However, I did not get a police report, and also, I do not it the criteria for the lemon law.

Since it is at home and I can't get it to first gear since the Clutch doesn't get a hold onto the engine, I'll need to get roadside to tow it back to the dealership.

But like you said, I'll be polite, but stern with the issues at hand. This is my car, but it is also my family's operated company car, and since it has commercial plates the lemon law will not work for me. All I need is a workng car, the clutch, the transmission, and the rear rotors and bearngs need to be checked, I'm sure they'll fix it.

evo_soul · Jul 1, 2009, 04:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nickrick2641

Evo_soul:

I do understand that it was rather unpleasant of me, to have reacted with such a comment, but I was still shaken up from te day before and he spoke to me like as if I had been wasting his time with my vehicle. However, I did not get a police report, and also, I do not it the criteria for the lemon law.

Since it is at home and I can't get it to first gear since the Clutch doesn't get a hold onto the engine, I'll need to get roadside to tow it back to the dealership.

But like you said, I'll be polite, but stern with the issues at hand. This is my car, but it is also my family's operated company car, and since it has commercial plates the lemon law will not work for me. All I need is a workng car, the clutch, the transmission, and the rear rotors and bearngs need to be checked, I'm sure they'll fix it.

in this case , your clutch maybe covered under warranty. if there is a failure of the unit. since your having issues it may be something they will take under advisement .

hard to say... i hope it all works out well.

stcguy05 · Jul 27, 2009, 04:53 AM

Nick,
YOu as other's have stated, the dealership needs to have attempted to fix the same problem at least 4 times.... I know what your going threw in terms of issues. I myself am bringing my lancer back AGIAN to the dealership with a list of problems they need to fix (11 problems to be exact). The only thing I can suggest/ the guy who originally sold me the car suggests (yes, im friends with the sales man who sold the clunker to me) is to crash it safley and total it out... Im about to steps away from doing this... Im tierd of having a unreliable POS and would much rather pay $446.76 a month on a lexus or BMW.. not this heep.

Good luck man!

Junkyard · Jul 27, 2009, 05:06 AM

Have it stolen.

Nickrick2641 · Aug 5, 2009, 06:59 AM

Now crashing it safely will be a challenge!

And getting it stolen.. .. I dunno whether I'd be too happy with that, would they just simply give me a new one?

Also, I just paid $2,172 for a CLUTCH.. Yes, I battled with Mitsubishi Corp.. but they said if I didn't pay I wouldn't get the car back.

I also paid another $500 because the tires were the original issue of all that humming..

What a waste of my time and money, I should have bought myself a used Evo 8 and been happy with it.....

EVO8904 · Aug 5, 2009, 07:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nickrick2641

I just paid $2,172 for a CLUTCH.. Yes, I battled with Mitsubishi Corp.. but they said if I didn't pay I wouldn't get the car back.

Can you go into more detail about this, like why in the hell it costed you that much for a clutch and how they forced you to pay? Did you not agree to a price before the install? I had a clutch installed on my EVO and it costed me with parts and labor $1050 and that was with an aftermarket clutch.

Nickrick2641 · Sep 3, 2009, 10:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EVO8904

Can you go into more detail about this, like why in the hell it costed you that much for a clutch and how they forced you to pay? Did you not agree to a price before the install? I had a clutch installed on my EVO and it costed me with parts and labor $1050 and that was with an aftermarket clutch.

First, their original intention was to check the car, and they would charge me for the cost of a diagnostic if they found nothing with it.

A day or so later, they called us that they found that the clutch had been sabotaged, and that they have already begun to repair the car by putting in the flywheel and some bearings while the clutch was being shipped to them.

Of course we were outraged when they said that since it was our fault we were going to have to pay the cost of labor and parts, and that the original total would be $2,572...

We called Mitsu Corp.. they sent out a supervisor, and deemed it that the car had been mistreated... thus thats how they were forcing us to pay, otherwise we would not get the car back.

It took them 11 hours... YES 11 hours, to replace a CLUTCH!

To this day i will never recover the money, nor buy another mitsubishi unless its an Evolution.

Now if there was a way I could deem it a lemon and that they jacked up the price to take well over $1,000... in their benefit...

Well I gave up on the subject, I'm too upset that I got screwed over, regardless of however I look at it. I'm furious at Corp for pointing the finger at the customer while we already have 2 of these lancers, both 5 speed, and the clutch on the other one is perfectly fine....

lancer0220 · Sep 3, 2009, 12:47 PM

^ should have gotten a lawyer involved, he could have gotten your car back without paying the outrageous cost for the clutch, you could have also considered claiming it on your insurance since it could have happened from the spin out...

humblehyper · Sep 6, 2009, 08:07 PM

That sucks! You should sue their a** and you should have called 911 and made a report on the incident so they can dig deeper onto what happened. It could be a recall! You're lucky you didn't get hurt! I'd say sue them!

You just scared me with the dealers closing because of poor sales, the one near my house also closed down a few months ago. I've been thinking about whether keeping my car or not for the past few days

Good luck.