Look them over closely when shopping used !

[Robby5323]

Today I took a trip about 4.5 hours away to visit a dealership. I was looking for a replacement for my previous car (2022 Mach 1.)

So the dealer was a Ford branded store that I contacted beforehand and had worked a deal with to actually purchase a 2023 Mach 1 they had in stock with a low 2,600 miles. I show up at opening and they pull it around. Up to this point, I’d only seen online and cellphone pics of the car. So we start going over the car and I get my first up close look. The first thing that caught my attention was the car didn’t seem to sound right at idle and was ridiculously dirty. Wheels and calipers were coated in road grime and brake dust. Mud and road tar down the sides. Hard to put your finger on it, but off. Poked my head inside and it had a funny smell. Almost chemical like. So, continue on with looking the car over and go for my test spin. Go a couple of miles down the road and something just doesn’t feel right. Clutch seems like it’s not grabbing. Steering feels almost weak. Then start going through the modes and settings and such. Hmmm, get a notification “Active valve exhaust not available.” Weird? The car only has 2,600 miles? So we pull over into a nearby gas station and take a closer look.

So at this time I’m guessing that a harness for the system had probably come loose or that it might have rubbed and shorted out. Nope, I was amazed! Someone had cut off the factory mufflers with the baffles and put on a pair of no-name flowmaster type knockoffs…. The harnesses were dangling via added zip ties. While on my belly crawling around under the rear of the car I notice the rear tires are almost bald and one has a gigantic nail protruding from it.

So back to the dealership we go. The sales manager comes out to talk with me about what I had found. He says “Let’s get my guy in the back to put it up on a lift and take a look.” He couldn’t understand how the exhaust could have been changed or messed with. Well, during this time we discussed my desire to not have a car with the active exhaust issues, the tires, the soft clutch, etc…

After about 10-minutes the sales manager comes back out and lets me know in a defeated tone “Yeah somebody straight piped it.” “It’s all been changed.” So we exchanged pleasantries and such, he gives me back my deposit i had made prior to seeing the car and that’s that. Well after looking back at the pics again, just to put myself at ease that I couldn’t have missed the changed exhaust tips in the sales ad…. I didn’t! The original tips were there when the sales ad was posted. But between that time and the time I looked at the car today, The car had been stripped of the active valve mufflers and tips and had the knockoff stuff installed. Pure speculation on my part, but it seems that the car may have been victim to an over zealous employee for some “test drives” and a “re-purposed” exhaust. IDK…

I say all this to say, give all used cars a good going over. You just never know what they have been through! So I’ll keep looking and searching.
Anybody else ever ran into anything like this?

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[wingnutt]

good on you for doing due diligence

And no dog in this fight…but my brother is a service manager for a large metro dealer. NOBODY in the chain is allowed to touch a car from trade-in to sales. If it’s suspect, it goes to auction, period end of story.

if this is true, the sales guy ran with an internet stock exhaust photo…nothing more, nothing less

 

[Robby5323]

Yeah, it’s weird because this one was Ford Gold Certified. I don’t see how it could have been certified with an inoperative active exhaust notice on the dash. Unless the dealer just didn’t do any sort of inspection.

 

[RiotfunK]

Most dealers will not put any time into a car that’s slightly used and still under warranty. They may not even change the oil and filter and say all this basic work was done when it wasn’t. If the cars under warranty they won’t fix anything. Then stick you to figuring it out the issues after purchase. Is kind of the new norm

 

[Hack]

Dealers can be really, really shady. There's a place near me that takes buyback cars. I went and looked at a couple of them and the prices were completely crazy out of line with the actual condition of the cars. I'm not afraid of buying something with some cosmetic issues if it's a good enough deal, but I stopped even looking at anything offered by this particular dealership.

I remember driving a Fiesta ST from this place back when I owned my GT350. The ST obviously had an aftermarket tune on it. It was pretty fun to drive, as the FiST launched harder than my GT350 during the test drive. The dealer said the car was warrantied, CPO, but I can't imagine being able to get Ford to repair the engine on a tuned car. And with the amount of power it made, I couldn't imagine it being reliable long term.

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