Lone Star Chevrolet - used car department (houston, tx)

Lone Star Chevrolet - Houston, Tx. (Northwest Houston)

I purchased a 2004 Chevy Malibu from this dealership and have had nothing but problems.

Three days after I bought the car, I had car issues. I went to start my car one morning and it didnt want to start. I took it back and my sales person asked me if "I had the car in park when I went to start it?". He said he would have the mechanics look at it. Well, he had my car for 1 day and I picked it up the next. He said the mechanics couldnt find a problem. So, I go another couple of days and the car didnt want to start again. I called the manager of service this time and he said bring it in. Well, they found the problem right away. The battery was leaking acid. Now, when they showed me the battery, it was VERY obvious that it was leaking. My thoughts were: If he had really taken the car to the mechanics that first day like he said, they would have seen the problem. I think my sales person lied to me and didnt want to handle the situation.

My second issue and I think the biggest issue is the purchase of the car. Lone Star gave me 3 weeks to come up with a down payment of $1000.00. I wrote them apost dated check for $1000.00 to be deposited on the 14th of November (2005). He said if I get the money before, just bring it in and they will put the money down. Well, I brought in $1000.00 cash on October 31, 2005 and I was given a cash receipt. Mike Wouton, the financial loan officer told me that the bookkeeper had already left for the evening and that he would pull my check in the morning and shred it. A couple of weeks go by and I go and check my bank account and Lone Star Chevy had deposited the check. The check was never pulled like it was supposed to be and so the $1000 went through and caused my checking account to bounce. It was a complete disaster. I called Lone Star and demanded that they write me a check to put back into my account. My account was frozen for 2 days and I had no money to buy gas, food, nothing. I had to spend a few hours at work, printing bank statements and faxing them to show proof of the check being cashed. I finally got a check written to me and I had to have my father go and pick up the check and when he arrived, it was written out to him (because he co-signed) and not to me. So, my father then had to sign the check over to me. I told Tony Martinez (another financial loan officer) that as soon as Wells Fargo (my bank) decided what to do with the check, I would contact them. Well, Wells Fargo returned the check to Lone Star a few days later. Michelle Morton (bookkeeper at Lone Star) pursues to call me at work and threaten to send my check to Telecheck. I told her I would be in as soon as I could to pay them their $1000.00 back. I told her the Friday after Thanksgiving. Well, I work 2 jobs and my grandmother ended up in the hospital and so I had to leave to go out of town unexpectedly. Going and giving the check to Lone star was not on my mind. So, I had already taken the money out of the bank to pay LoneStar back and I go to check my account today and find that Michelle had sent my check to Telecheck. she did not attempt to call me or contact me in any fashion. She just took it uon her self to send it off. Now, I work for a professional company and we deal with financial matters. If we have issues with an account, we contact that client several different ways to try to handle the matter professionally. She did nothing. I felt as though I was being treated as a thief. I called her and asked her why she sent the check off and she basically said because I didnt show up on the exact day I told her. She didnt care in the least bit. So, now my checking account has bounced yet again and I am at my wits end with the whole situation. I will NEVER recommend Lone Star Chevrolet to anyone. The communication skills at that dealership are horrible!! No one cares about anything over there. As long as they have their money, that is all they care about!! I hope that this email is able to inform a lot of futue car buyers. I went into pretty good detail in this situation but I cannot describe the annoying lack of concern from customer service. I have never felt so lost in a situation before as I did with this car buying experience. I hope no one has to go through the torture that I went through. Well, just DONT buy from these fools and I am sure everything will be fine. Lone Star basically acted like this was not there problem. Well, it was. I wouldnt have had to deal with any of this if they would ha communicated and acted on this matter as a team. I got passed around to many different people to get this situation cleared.

Thank you, Catherine Daigle

( Email User)

Comment On This

I agree with the above statements regarding Lone Star Chevrolet and only wish I had found the this posting prior to purchasing my vehicle. My story is below.

Within 3 weeks of purchasing a used vehicle (2003 with only 46,500 miles) from Loan Star Chevrolet in Houston TX several issues came to light. The coolant was leaking into the engine (Technical Service Bulletins 01368A, 02013, 030602007, and 3018). The driver side AC would start blowing full heat for no apparent reason (Technical Service Bulletin PIT3504D). This was going on long enough to cause a short in the main AC control panel requiring that to be replaced as well. The steering column began making clunking noises periodically (Technical Service Bulletin 000235003N). Finally the rear passenger window stopped working and would begin sliding down. As I do not use dealerships for my vehicle repairs because they charge more when I spoke with them about the issues all they said was we did not do the repairs so we can’t confirm. I believe that the repair shop that I choose was more honest and upfront then a dealership would have been.

The impression that I was given by the sales managers at Lone Star Chevrolet was that it was my fault for not properly researching the vehicle in advance. My research indicated that this should have been a good vehicle with no problems and any reports of the above problems that I found were higher mileage vehicles (70,000 +). The discussions blamed me for not letting them do the repairs, it was as if they knew these issues might come up and they were hoping to be paid for the work instead of the repair shop that I chose by my house.

Be very careful in your dealings with the used car department at Lone Star Chevrolet. They have very poor customer service after the fact.