Auto Land of Manassas, VA
Complaint 332408 Details

The used 1992 Ford Thunderbird that my family and I bought from Auto Land of Manassas, VA, had numerous problems, some quite serious and expensive to fix, that were not disclosed to us at the time of purchase, and they knew about many, if not all of them; for examples, how they intentionally deceived us about the odometer, taillight, DMV fees, fuse for the speedometer/odometer, etc.

In addition, the salesman told us that VA DMV’s registration fee for 2 years was $170. When we questioned that, telling him that it was supposed to be about $40/year, he offered us a 1 year registration for $42, saying it was cheaper (proportionally); DMV told me that they should’ve charged us $40.50 / 1yr or $81 / 2yrs. We were not given an itemized receipt showing exactly what we were charged for title fee, registration fee, and tax – only a total amount of all of the charges printed on a Debit Card cash register type receipt from our bank. The car was sold “as-is” with no warranty, which would have been understandable if everything had been properly disclosed to us, as it should have been.

One of the reasons we bought this car was that the advertisement Auto Land placed on autotrader.com claimed that the car had only 57,000 “actual miles” (according to Auto Land’s ad). After driving 80 miles home, we discovered that the odometer was broken and had not changed: the odometer had the same mileage displayed on it as the inspection ticket, which had been written six months prior. They swore on a federal odometer statement, under penalty of fines and imprisonment, that the mileage was accurate, and also in their advertisement on www.Cars.com stated:

“Used 1992 Ford Thunderbird for sale. $2,500. 57,000 miles. Blue. Manager's special! Going fast! Must-see! Must sell! All credit O.K. Financing available. Actual miles. Clean title. Low Mileage. One owner. Auto Land 1-877-938-3775” (Ad has now been removed, but I have copies of it, as well as a photo of the odometer taken by AutoLand and posted with their ad, photo of the JVC radio/CD player, and a photo taken by us of the odometer after driving the car 160 miles showing that it had not changed since the reading shown on the inspection ticket 6 months ago, which we also have a photo of.)

In addition to this, the speedometer did not display the correct speed: it read 39 MPH when we were driving 60 MPH. Unfortunately, we did not find this problem until after we had bought the car because the instrument panel lights were broken and it was nighttime.

When we had arrived at Auto Land, the salesman told us that he had had to jumpstart the car with a portable battery and that the car’s battery should be fully charged by the time we drove home, and to make sure not to shut the engine off until then. However, when we tried to start the car the next day, we found out that the battery was completely dead and could not hold a charge. We had to pay $120 for a new battery.

On our test drive, the car ran smoothly, but on the drive home, the transmission would shudder between first and second gear until we went fast enough to use third gear. We learned later that the transmission had been severely damaged because the throttle pressure rod grommet related to the transmission’s overdrive had deteriorated. The salesman apparently knew about this because he told us not to use the overdrive selection on the shift lever. His excuse was that using overdrive would waste gas. Our car is currently having its transmission rebuilt (at a cost of over $2,000).

During our inspection of the car at Auto Land, we noticed that the lights between the left taillight and backup light were out. The salesman told us that the lights were burned out and that he would fix them as we filled out the forms for purchasing the vehicle. We also noticed that the instrument console lights (odometer/speedometer, etc.) were all out and asked him to have his mechanic fix them, along with the taillight.

After going in the back and returning, he told us that there were 20 little light bulbs that had burned out and that he had only had five available to replace them with. To prove this, he handed us a small light bulb claiming it was one of the burned out ones that he had replaced, despite the fact that we looked closely at the bulb and told him that the filament looked fine. When we told him this, he said that the problem was not with the filament, but “a little wire in the base” of the bulb. When we got home, we checked the bulb with a meter and found that it was in perfect working order! He probably just banged the panel containing the LEDs until some came on and handed us an incandescent light bulb from his garage.

When we asked if he had fixed the instrument console lights, he replied that the mechanic had already closed and locked his toolbox and was getting ready to go home, but the problem was just a fuse under the hood that we could replace ourselves. (We replaced the fuse – not under the hood, but under the dash – which was blown, but the instrument lights still do not work, so there is still another problem which caused the fuse to blow.)

Research on the Internet and our personal inspection of the panel confirmed that the salesman had lied to us. The panel actually contains 20 LEDs, not light bulbs, and it is impossible to open the panel without cutting it open. When we removed the panel from the car, it was obvious that the salesman had never opened the panel and replaced any lights at all (all of the bolts holding it to the car were sealed with old, original caulk to the underside of the car trunk and had never been disassembled since the car was built. Also, the taillight unit itself was permanently sealed and could not “be slid open” like the salesman had explained that he had supposedly opened it and replaced the “bulbs”.)

Once we were home, we also noticed that the exhaust manifold had a leak in it where it connects to the engine. Even though this problem could have been easily seen by the salesman when he opened the car hood and jumpstarted the car, we were not informed of it.

In addition to these problems, several pictures were included in the advertisement that showed a working JVC radio and CD player on the console; however, the radio that was in the car when we bought it was an old cassette tape player that did not work at all.

Also, the passenger side electric window won’t go back up. We discovered this while still at AutoLand when we opened the window, and because of that were told that it was a simple to fix, inexpensive problem for which we could purchase a window regulator (quite hard to find and rare for a car this old) for $26 and (if we drove all the way to northern VA and back, 180 miles on a broken transmission that would give out any moment and then have to be towed – even if the gas expense of driving that far to have it fixed wasn’t prohibitive) he would have his mechanic fix it for another $50.

My family and I are very disappointed by the way that this company conducts business and want them to reimburse us for the cost of these required repairs (which have cost us approximately $3000, in addition to the $2600 that we paid for the car). Many of these defects would not have allowed the car to pass inspection, had the car not been sold to us as having already passed inspection.

After arriving home and discovering all of these problems, we found the following on the internet:

http://www.cars.com/dealers/194329/autoland-sales-llc/reviews/

Rated F on a scale of A+ to F by BBB due to 22 complaints made to the BBB:
http://www.bbb.org/washington-dc-eastern-pa/Business-Reviews/auto-dealers-used-cars/auto-land-sales-llc-in-manassas-va-163520180/

http://www.scambook.com/company/view/28992/Auto-Land-Sales-LLC