dealer has a lemon GTS for sale for top dollar? ***

[Paul Hawker]

Not sure why someone would come on this forum to trash a car for sale.

If it is not for you, simply move on.

For someone else it might be just the car, and well worth the money.

Tomball has a fantastic reputation, and makes a market for Vipers. Buys and sells a ton of them.

Maybe this one was mis-marked, maybe not, but I have never understood why someone would dump on another persons efforts to sell a car they have no interest in buying.

At least it would be more fair to give the seller a personal call to check out the details before trashing it here.

 

[Next Phase]

Yeah, that is top retail price for a car with the history and miles. Someone that really wants that color may be willing to look past that...

 

[Tomball Dodge]

Hey Guys this is a thread that I was just made aware of and don't deny any of the items listed on Autocheck. When I bought the car I ran a carfax and it came up clean and this was also a good customer of Tom's. The car is a car that is flagged with a lemon law tag and we cannot understand it or figure out why it states this, the car I had the front nose painted and when I went to list the car on eBay it showed a Autocheck actually showed a left front impact. Shame on me for not doing my job better, but this car drives and runs great and the price is negotiable. After I listed it the first time on EBay it kicked it off and I thought I had put a bad vin in the line, the second time is when It told me why it came back. It is a 2002 ACR and Graphite and is a good car, if someone wants the car call me.

I am not trying to hide anything and am a little distraught that it came back with a left front impact, I can tell you the car has been tracked and we took it in as we do a lot of track cars. We have checked the car and did change out the wheels and it has a ton of good mods on it as Tom states. The car drives great and has good power, the hood could be repainted as it shows trash in the hood from whomever the first company did the work.

 

[v10enomous]

The car's history is the car's history but consider that it has an endorsement from the guys that supplied the 7:12 Ring Record ACR.

 

[Vipuronr]

For my 2 cents, I think it depends on why someone is buying the car. If it is as an investment, that lemon buyback on the title might hurt resale. However, there are a number of people/members who buy Vipers with the intent of keeping them, modding them and so on! For those people, the title is less of an issue and I agree, if anyone can spot problems in a Viper, it is probably Tomball....and they aren't trying to hide anything, for that they should get credit...they do have a reputation to uphold. That said, its a rare color and IMHO a very nice looking ACR.

I do think the price will come down, but not all that much. They can sit on the car and wait for that one "right" buyer, as they move plenty of Vipers. As said earlier, they probably picked that car up cheap, as it looks to be an auction car.

 

[georgethedog]

georgethedog asked: "Are you a used car salesman???" As I don't know if you are kidding or not, I'll only say that Tom Sessions is a well respected, highly experienced Viper Tech who has worked on hundreds of Vipers...from drivers to race cars. He was the Official Viper Days Tech Inspector for 5or 6 years, and this past year maintained and travelled with an ACR-X team. Tom is also kind enough to travel to an Indianapolis Dodge dealer twice a year, at which time he performs ALL types of service, repairs, upgrades, recalls, etc. on many, many Vipers. I hope this helps.

Hey Steve, I was just kidding around. That's what I do most of the time. I used to use the little "smiley faces" more often to make sure people knew, but now I have to search for them so I don't bother.

 

[bluesrt]

geo you know you wernt

 

[Steve-Indy]

Thought that was the case...just wanted to give a little credit to Mr. Sessions!!

 

[plumcrazy]

id trust both tom and tomball for sure.

 

[Timnineside]

Ah givin the situation I can see both sides. Still think the price is high givin problems that may come up for resale. Either way it would be nice to have access to the correction of these types of things.

I would mention this info in the add somewhere I know Tomball is a trusted name, but the reasurrance of a carfax and known history would make a difference to the average buyer.

-Tim

 

[mattdillon]

I'm surprised its a Tomball car. The mileage is nothing, but for the dirty carfax report (title issue--prob the lemon buyback and accident found), I'm surprised they even took it in on trade. Also saw a couple typos in the ad which surprises me for Tomball.

Chad, I only read a couple of the posts & then saw it was a Tomball car & that's EXACTLY what I was thinking (Tomball doesn't sell cars with issues) must be a mistake. Now I'll read the rest of the thread & see what's the deal!

 

[mattdillon]

Chad, I only read a couple of the posts & then saw it was a Tomball car & that's EXACTLY what I was thinking (Tomball doesn't sell cars with issues) must be a mistake. Now I'll read the rest of the thread & see what's the deal!

OK, so now I know the rest of the story. Tom & Tomball came on & clarified the situation, so it's all worked out! I think someone will end of getting a nice sound car & a better deal to boot. jmo!

 

[dave6666]

Either buy it, ignore it, or ****

 

[redtanrt10]

It is virtually impossible to have a car found to be a lemon. There are so many hoops to jump through... Man, this thing must have had something terribly wrong.

George I disagree. Years ago working for Chrysler I've seen a number of lemon law vipers and back then in the 90's Chrysler was very liberal with taking care of customers out of waranttee and paying for items they we're legally obligated to do. I remember a 96-97 Blue GTS, you could smell the adhesives from the body panels inside the car. Perhaps in a few months etc the smell would go away, but no easy fix that day so they bought the viper back. Another with paint flaws, contaminented paint. They could have repainted the entire car to correct but then have a ********** customer, so they just bought it back. Mechanical flaws with the motor, Chrysler did and I think still don't want the dealers to tear down the motor and fix under warantee, they instead send to Arrow. Lemon Law is 30 days, unless the dealer can diagonose, pull motor, ship to Arrow, rebuild, ship back, etc etc. you can get it lemon law'd instead of taking a rebuild. some have done so. (And an Arrow rebuild is the best stock motor you can own).

My experience with viper's is that more often its an odd problem and they work to take care of the customer. I ran into a guy here in SoCal a couple of years ago. He had some odd problem with his '06 coupe. Local dealer couldn't fix, chrysler stepped in and told him go find a new '08 and swap for free.

This car in the post, who knows why they bought it back?? Priced too high, the market sets pricing. Bad car, I'd bet not. Mike

 

[v10enomous]

When I purchased my car there were 3 instances where it was taken back to the dealer early on. The dealership name is on the history report but there weren't any details about the problem. I called the dealership and they remembered the car and I actually spoke to the Tech that worked on it. The previous post reminded me because it was a problem with a burning adhesive smell from the sills which they finally corrected. Most dealerships don't see a whole lot of Vipers so it is a bit easier to track down the history.

 

[georgethedog]

George I disagree. Years ago working for Chrysler I've seen a number of lemon law vipers and back then in the 90's Chrysler was very liberal with taking care of customers out of waranttee and paying for items they we're legally obligated to do. I remember a 96-97 Blue GTS, you could smell the adhesives from the body panels inside the car. Perhaps in a few months etc the smell would go away, but no easy fix that day so they bought the viper back. Another with paint flaws, contaminented paint. They could have repainted the entire car to correct but then have a ********** customer, so they just bought it back. Mechanical flaws with the motor, Chrysler did and I think still don't want the dealers to tear down the motor and fix under warantee, they instead send to Arrow. Lemon Law is 30 days, unless the dealer can diagonose, pull motor, ship to Arrow, rebuild, ship back, etc etc. you can get it lemon law'd instead of taking a rebuild. some have done so. (And an Arrow rebuild is the best stock motor you can own).

My experience with viper's is that more often its an odd problem and they work to take care of the customer. I ran into a guy here in SoCal a couple of years ago. He had some odd problem with his '06 coupe. Local dealer couldn't fix, chrysler stepped in and told him go find a new '08 and swap for free.

This car in the post, who knows why they bought it back?? Priced too high, the market sets pricing. Bad car, I'd bet not. Mike

Here is a copy of my other post you must not have seen:

Things have really changed. Back in 1986 I bought a Laser and had it back a dozen times for the same issue. All I got from Chrylser was the run-around, etc. etc. Lemon law did not help me without a thousand hoops to jump through. I sold the car and for the first time in 25 years bought a new Chrylser product this past year. They lost a lot of sales because of the way I was treated. Must be different now--a lot easier...

Anyway, I was treated like crap by Chrylser and the dealership. Maybe they turned it around in the 90's, but in the 80's they did not give a crap about their customers. That was my experience. And, they lost my business for 25 years. They also lost out on selling probably at least 10-15 cars to family members.

 

[v10enomous]

The car sold on ebay for $34,900. That bodes very well for GTS values, especially ACR's.