Silvia Club of NSW

Why drive when you can drift?
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 Post subject: WARNING - CAR DEALERS
PostPosted: Thu Nov 23, 2006 10:16 pm 
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T28 Hybrid

Joined: Sun Aug 27, 2006 10:36 pm
Posts: 96
Location: Inner west Sydney
Car: 2000 200sx S15 Spec R (Japan)
Hello all

im a new member, been loving S15's since i was 16 when my old man had one.

I saved up a bit of money, and walked myself down to the dealer to start test driving around. No intention of buying, just didn;t want to waste private seller's time with test drives to get an idea of S15, skyline, supra, rx7 etc.

went down to EDWARD LEE's JAPANESE AUTO CENTRE. and test drove a blue S15, it drove alrite, had TIEN coilovers, buddyclub rims, and an exhaust. Dealers, as they generally are, were friendly, but pushy, trying to get me to buy that very same day.

I got out of that, and all through the next day, at least on the half hour, i was called by the dealer to be asked when i was next coming down to buy the car.

finally, partly because I didn;t want to wait for the sale of my current car and mainly cos i wanted a S15, I walked down there again, and negotiated the car to having a CWEST body kit fitted by JETSPEED, 12 months rego, and 12 months warantee for $28,500 and on this I bought the car.

It took the dealers 2 weeks to send the car to jetspeed, and another week for jetspeed to send it back, 2 days after it arrived back, i was called to come and pick it up. when I picked it up the standard gearknob was no longer in the car, but the body kit, and my new head unit, and a rattle from an exhaust silencer had all been taken care of, so I handed over my money, and drove away.

2 days later, as instructed, I remover the tape from the sicaflex that was holding on the drivers side skirt. This took with it a portion of paint. about the size of 2 20c pieces. upon closer inspection, I realised that under the paint had not been primed. later that day (bad day) i hit a speedbump at uni not realising i had a very low car now, and did damage to the front bar. It was not primed underneath either.

1 month into driving the car, a horrible noise from the gearbox emerged. I returned to the dealer to claim on warantee. It took edward lee's 5 days to send the car to the gearbox specialists, and the gearbox specialists took half a day to fix the problem, which was a quick bearing change seeing as nissan genuine is just down the road from them.

3 days later, the noise is coming back, i return straight to the gearbox place, and am informed that they plumb forgot to put a seal on, and so my gearbox had leaked almost dry (which i had noticed happening, so i took it back). a week after that, the gasket on the lower side of the exhaust manifold got blown away. I rang edward lees, and made an appointment, being assured it was a max of a day. 4 days later, i have my car back.

now, i find, while putting on a new intercooler, that somethin in the turbo is completely blown, and so it is like a swimming pool of oil inside, which would explain what i thought wasa bad boost solenoid. now, because of the intercooler, I have voided my warantee (even thought it didn;t do the damage, and am up for a new turbo)

the moral?

EDITED BY ZEi - Thanks for posting your experience. But I had to edit this section. Please note the rules or PM a moderator if you think it was unnecessary.


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PostPosted: Thu Nov 23, 2006 11:31 pm 
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T88 Hybrid
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Joined: Tue May 10, 2005 12:23 pm
Posts: 868
Location: Northern Beaches
Car: A31 Drift pig
That is definitely the tail of a bad experience!! Sorry to hear about those issues, but all I can say is buyer beware as I too payed a visit to that place, where they proceeded to pull apart my 180 like it was theirs!!

And I really spoiled the salemans day as he proceeded to tell me he wanted to be a race car driver as he flat changed my car on inspection yet didn't know who or what CAMS was???? And once I finally drove the car I was looking at it had more loose nuts than a mental assylum!!

I also dont think negotiation is one of their strong points! Nor is product knowledge, but that is the way of some car dealers, having worked at one in the past...

End rant :P

-Phillb

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PostPosted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 12:11 am 
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T88 Hybrid

Joined: Wed Nov 08, 2006 8:33 pm
Posts: 883
Location: Sydney
Car: Nissan silvia s13
sorry to hear the story as u refered it back in the topic I made back in the silvia section. Like I said there I really cant stand people who do that. That also goes for parts dealers too who take advantage of people who do not have that much exp and knowledge.

Have u thought about letting the fair trading know?

When my s13 was having the problems I just simply had to change the engine. In your case even though u have all those problems the way I see it, there would be no point in selling the car because since there are all that problems there are too much hassles to sell it as well as the amount u can get back. Also u mentioned that u are a uni student too, which I am too and unfortuantely we both owe money to than banks because of loans we took.

I think if it all comes to worse it would be better to change the engine than trying to fix the current engine because there is way too many problems and even if one thing got fixed another major problem may come up. Also, relying on the guys the dealers keep on refering is no good too because it seems like they wouldnt do the job properly in the first place anyways :evil:

I really feel for u and hope something good comes out of this situation


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PostPosted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 12:48 am 
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T78
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Joined: Wed Sep 03, 2003 11:58 am
Posts: 523
Car: 180 Sr20d3t
Yeah i was over there the other day- saw them flat shift and redline a cold twin turbo 3000 gt and a r33 gtst up the street and around the block as they were swapping cars around

Salesmen was a total knob jockey who didnt even know WTF an fd was and knew shit all about the cars on sale

Would NEVER buy a car from them- oh and one of there s15's there they tryed to make as clean and standard looking as possible has a 2 way cusco lsd, drift coilovers and drift club stickers on the rear window which they tried to remove but is still imprinted on the glass "we the grip and drift touge kings" or some shit- he said its never been modded apart from the exhaust and is clean as :o
yeah mate i bet a 40 year old salary man owned it ;)

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PostPosted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 1:04 am 
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SilviaNSW Supporter
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Joined: Thu Jan 31, 2002 11:00 am
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Location: Sydney
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dorifto wrote:
Yeah i was over there the other day- saw them flat shift and redline a cold twin turbo 3000 gt and a r33 gtst up the street and around the block as they were swapping cars around


:o
Ooo-kay, bumps em up a few notches on the places not too shop.

(Pet hate- cold engine abuse, so many fuckwits do this...)


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PostPosted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 8:55 am 
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I gotta say though, fitting a fmic wasn't the best idea while the car was still under warranty. It seemed like the dealer was at least coming to the party and fixing all the issues you brought to their attention before that.

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PostPosted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 9:28 am 
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Twin T66
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Joined: Sat Oct 01, 2005 12:52 am
Posts: 1344
Car: CA18DET 180sx
MK wrote:
(Pet hate- cold engine abuse, so many fuckwits do this...)


My pet hate with stuff like this is people thinking "yeah, I let the engine idle for 15 minutes, the temp gauge has come up slightly, so I can thrash it to within 2 inches of death", when the gearbox is still cold, the diff oil is still settled, etc, etc and the engine is warmed up and pushing it's optimal power for the morning, there is nothing worse for the rest of the driveline than someone belting a car around with a warm engine and cold driveline.

As for Edward Lee, when I was looking at 180sx's I went there, had a look at 1, he wanted a deposit before test drive and I told him no way, I found the car I liked, and gave them a list of stuff I wanted fixed before I would buy it, but the refused to do any work unless a contract was signed, I eventually signed a contract, but the car hadn't moved an inch since I signed, so I came back andf formely cancelled my purchaser's agreement in writting, and forforted my $500 deposit (well worth it with some of the stuff I noticed).

Anyway, for weeks later, they kept calling me, telling me the car is still waiting, etc, etc, the calls only stopped after I went back to them with the car I currenty have, and told them if they keep the calls up, I would be speaking to Police in regards to harasment, and that I had made my purchase for a new car elsewhere because the people where easier to deal with, and quite happy to get my car rectified when required.

B.


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PostPosted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 11:24 am 
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Joined: Mon Feb 03, 2003 10:19 pm
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Car: Skoda Octavia RS
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Please remember the rules from here on guys. :)

FYI, i bought my S13 from there many years ago. Maybe the delership has new owners etc or something. I had a few warranty claims. one such claim was a weird vibration when the car got to 60-70km/h. turned out to be a bent tailshaft. they said it probably happened when the car was moved around. 2 days later i had a new tailshaft.

i think a few other members have bought cars from them with no problems. everyone else i have taken there they have treated well, but yes i guess their prices arent the best compared to a private sale. but they are a dealership and supply a warranty with the car and also 12 months rego if i remember correctly.

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PostPosted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 11:32 am 
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T78 Hybrid
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Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2003 10:38 pm
Posts: 685
Location: Sydney
Car: S ichigo Spec R
i was browsing their website sometime last year and i saw a white S15 in "Transit Page".. I click on the pics and saw it had no cluster!:o dodgy kms, I'd never buy a import from them or any dealer

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PostPosted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 12:59 pm 
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I agree with zei on this one.

From the sounds of it they have honoured your warranty claims (and many other peoples i might add).

But you have now breached the conditions of warranty and so let them off the hook on the turbo issue.

What you should have done was stop installing the new cooler and reinstall the old one, then take it back for a claim.

If you'd bought the same car privately you would have been out of pocket for all the reapirs so far. So is it worth paying a premium to a dealer? In your case i'd say yes.

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PostPosted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 3:18 pm 
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S15R wrote:
i was browsing their website sometime last year and i saw a white S15 in "Transit Page".. I click on the pics and saw it had no cluster!:o dodgy kms, I'd never buy a import from them or any dealer


imports from Japan are notorious for have the ks 'modified' as this attracts more money at the auctions. so it wouldnt surprise me that the pics that were supplied to them via the auction house (or wherever) MAY (or maybe not) have swapped the cluster. if the car never surfaced here, maybe the dealership realised and backed out of the deal as they also didnt notice the lack of cluster.

so i wouldnt go so far as to tell people not to buy ANY car from there.

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PostPosted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 5:01 pm 
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badhairdave wrote:
I agree with zei on this one.


Hey! That was me!

(not getting picky or anything. :P )

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PostPosted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 11:21 pm 
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who are you again?? :P

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PostPosted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 11:06 am 
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Quad T66
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Car: 200sx
my experience with edward lees was that they are VERY pushy, and over priced.

they werent really knowledgable about the cars they sold either.


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PostPosted: Mon Nov 27, 2006 7:45 pm 
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T88 Hybrid

Joined: Wed Nov 08, 2006 8:33 pm
Posts: 883
Location: Sydney
Car: Nissan silvia s13
True true, they tend to go overboard with thre calling thingy :evil: Imagine if they did that croacking thing like in the grudge movie or maybe that thing that they did in Scream :D when u are alone in the house in a stormy day.

The way I look at it, the dealers have to take their margin in the sales too but the fact they tend to give people hard time and claim all this and that for a product I believe is unethical and does not justify the price that they want for it.

But than again u do have to do your research and u do pay for what u pay. As in my for silvia I knew that there were problems with the engine when I first got it and knew it was going to set me back, but for the price I paid for it it was worth the hassle.


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