Desert Sun Espanola, Inc.

To Whom It May Concern; In response to Desert Sun Espanola’s work on Mr*** ***’s Dodge Avenger and the complaint to the Revdex.comMr*** did bring his vehicle in on January 27, after having it at a local repair shopThe repair shop informed Mr*** he
needed his key programed and that he would have to come to a dealership for that serviceUpon arrival, Mr*** stated that he needed his key programed to his vehicleWe informed him that we would program his key, but if it still did not start the vehicle he would be responsible for the cost of programing the keyMr*** authorized the programing. When the vehicle entered the shop, the key would not program due to a severely discharged batteryWe charged the battery for minutes before our technician was able to proceed to program the keyThe key would not program due to lack of communication with the WCM (wireless control module)The customer agreed to purchase the WCM and a new keyWhen the WCM was installed and the key was programed, the vehicle did start but upon starting the vehicle our technician noticed the starter was grindingAt this point we suggested to the customer that he should get a new starter and new battery so the vehicle would run properly. Mr***’s mother declined the repairs and took the vehicle from the dealership. Mr*** and Ms*** then took the vehicle and had the starter and battery replaced by another local shop. After the local shop did not fix the vehicle properly Mr*** brought the vehicle back to Desert Sun EspanolaWhen a vehicle comes into our shop and is not running, we always inform the customer that the preliminary diagnosis is just a start in some instances due to the complexity of modern day electrical systemsWhen the customer arrived on Monday, January 31, 2017, we discussed with our technician that the starter and battery had been replaced elsewhere, which was a cause for concern for us to work on the vehicle further after it had been with another technicianThis was the reason for us declining the work on Mr***’s Avenger furtherWe are very sorry that Mr*** and Ms*** *** felt that we declined working on their vehicle due to anything other than our comfort and liability after another technician had handled the starter and battery replacementOur service department got the car running, which is why the vehicle came inHad our service department completed all work on the vehicle, we would be more than happy to complete any repairs necessary and take responsibility for the vehicle not being operational, as well as provide a thorough explanation whyDesert Sun Espanola takes pride in making sure our customers are satisfied with our service, and we are very sorry to hear that Mr*** and Ms*** did not feel this in their experience with usWe appreciate them trusting us with their vehicle in the first place and hope we can gain their trust in the future

Revdex.com:I am rejecting this response from Deserg Sun Espanola, IncI have reviewed the response in regards to ID # ***It is not clear to me as from whom this response is coming from at Desert Sun Espanola, Inc., but there are inaccuracies in their responseRefusal of service and explanation are erroneous to what this response readsI would like to inquire as to whom responded to this complaint on behalf of Desert Sun Espanola, IncI question how this information was collected; from what parties other than what is indicated.Respectfully,*** ***

Complaint: ***
I am rejecting this response because: Sorry, I did not receive the email messages until todayThe answers are a follows.1) No, there has been no resolution to my complaint, and I have not been contacted as of yet.2) The answers to Travis H*** questions:3) No I did not speak to anyone prior to my arrival at the dealershipI was hunting in New MexicoI am from Colorado and the nearest dealership per google search was the Epanola New Mexico Dealership4) I was never offered a dealership vehicle while at the shopI was given a number for a taxi company, and then the service staff gave me and my partner a lift to a hotel5) The truck stayed at the dealership for so long because 1, I was from Colorado and needed to arrange transportation home, After arriving home, a person from the dealership called and offered to purchase the truck for $1,I agreed and then waited for several weeks for the money to be sentThe money was never sentThen finally, the person called and said due to some family emergency, he only had $for the truckAt that point, I said I would not sell the truck for $and arranged for the truck to be shipped to ColoradoThe dealership promised me I could keep the truck at the dealership for as long as need at no charge.6) Your dealership manager contacted a wholesaler for an auction price of my truck if he bought the truckHe stated the wholesaler would only pay $for the truck and that was all he would offer.Please send me any other questions
Regards,
*** *** [To assist us in bringing this matter to a close, the consumer must give a reason why they are rejecting the responseIf the consumer does not provide a reason if he complaint will be closed Administratively Resolved]

To Whom it May Concern: My name is Travis H*** and I am the CEO of the Desert Sun Auto Group. I have read your complaint and done some intial research. It appears to me that your complaint is legitimate. I do have some further questions to ask in order that we
effectively respond to you and make the appropriate management decisions here at the store. As it relates to my investigation of the issue, can you please answer the following questions and email or attach the following documentation: Did you speak to anyone at the dealership prior to your arrival for diagnosis? How long did you use a dealership vehicle while our store was attempting to diagnose your vehicle's condition? Did my staff offer or insist upon giving you a ride to or from the hotel you stayed at in Espanola? Why did you initially choose to leave your truck at the dealership? Who quoted you $(per your complaint) as an appraised value for your truck? Why did the truck stay at our dealership as long as it did after it was brought in initially? Please forward to my email a copy of:The completed repair order from the dealership who eventually fixed your truck for $225Your Rental receiptYour hotel receiptThe tow receipt Based on just the information I have so far, I believe we, at least, didn't complete the diagnosis of your vehicle. For that I am embarassed and very sorry. The other accusations and your subsequent request for reimbursement are going to take a bit more research. Please answer the questions attached and forward me copies of the bills I requested (and that you are asking me to pay), and I will do my best to address your complaint. As you have chosen to post record of this event on at least a few different public forums, I will go to great lengths to prove to you and everyone else you've included in the discussion that Desert Sun takes our integrity and the quality of our work seriously. We certainly make mistakes and are willing to admit it, but there is no company policy nor behaviour that will be permitted that allows for the type of conspiracy to steal your car from you that your complaint suggested. Thanks for helping me address your issue and for holding our dealerhship accountable. We welcome the scrutiny. Travis H***###-###-#### work

This is in response to MrH*** request for the receipts on the cost of my truck being shipped to Colorado and all the expenses associated with this issue. *** ***

I read the repair order from ***'s that states compression was good on the number cylinder. This is the cylinder that tested at psi at our dealership. There is no way for me to verify whether our reading or the reading at *** was correct. However, I seems immaterial to most of the claim. Without further investigation, I will agree to refund Mr*** the cost of his service with our dealership ($215.48) . We certainly performed the service we charged Mr*** for, but it is possible that either our compression test was performed incorrectly or our equipment failed. It is also possible that the injector Mr. *** replaced at ***'s won't fix his problem in the long term. Had I been the technician that received a low compression test, I wouldn't have asked Mr. *** to pay for an injector that wouldn't have solved the problem In order to prove whether our work was done correctly or not, I would have to pay someone to do a compression test in Colorado and the cost could be similar to what I am agreeing to pay him in the interest of arriving at a solution. . As it regards the other expenses incurred by Mr. ***, I can't reimburse them for the following reasons. The rental expense would have been incurred under any circumstance. Mr*** wanted to finish his hunt and return home and couldn't do it without a rental. Even if our dealership misdiagnosed his car (I still can't know whether we did), it would have taken a similar amount of time to fix as it eventually did at ***'s. According to the repair order, the repair took four business days from the receipt of the vehicle to complete. It was received on the 31st of October and completed the 5th of November. Had we made the same diagnosis, Mr. *** still would have had to rent a car to complete his hunt and return home. Perhaps he could have stayed in New Mexico a few more days in order for us to have completed the repair, but he left the truck because he had made a side deal (without management's knowledge) with one of my employees to buy it. Hence, his decision to have to ship it home after that deal fell through. I don't see how that decision is a result of anything other than his personal unwillingness to accept the final offer he received for the truck. He left the truck in New Mexico and he chose to ship it back to Colorado. Neither was Desert Sun's fault.I believe there was at least one mistake made at our dealership. Our employee should never have entered into an agreement with Mr*** to buy the vehicle for more than our management offered him. Desert Sun has and will deal with this company policy violation as we chooseWe couldn't, however, have kept Mr*** from his participation in said arrangement. It is possible that our compression test was poorly done or that the equipment failed. It would not be the first time a mistake has happened or the last time one will happen. However, we don't have a less expensive way to verify whether a mistake was made than to refund Mr. *** for the service we performed. If this solution is satisfactory to him, Desert Sun will issue and send a check for $to the destination of his choice. Desert Sun only would ask that Mr. *** accept our sincere apology for giving him any reason to believe that we were purposefully misleading him . That certainly wasn't the case and our forfeiture of the only money we could or would have received from the transaction should serve as proof of that fact. Travis H***CEO

I received receipts from Mr*** totalling $They are for rental (days, miles, and $362.70), shipping ($495), and the Repair Order he paid us for ($215.48).
I have yet to receive the bill for repair from the dealership Mr*** suggested had reparied the vehicle. It is important that I do. Mr*** is suggesting he incurred these expenses as a result of either our ineptitude or our effort to "scam him out of his truck." In order to make the case that we owe him money, we need to be able to show that he wouldn't have had to rent a vehicle or tow his home under any other circumstance. Desert Sun is willing to pay if we caused any of these costs through our failure to properly diagnose his vehicle. That is, after all, what he paid us for. However, we did a compression test on Mr***'s vehicle when it was in our shop and #cylinder tested out at psi. It is the opinion of myself and some very highly trained techinicians on my staff that an injector (what he stated eventually fixed his vehicle) wouldn't have solved low compression in that cylinder. Our diagnosis was that it would take significantly more time and money to determine what would solve Mr***'s issue and that it could result in his needing to replace a motor in the worst case. It was then that the discussion about him trading it in began. He needed transportation for his hunt that weekend and nothign we could do would have solved his probelm quickly enough to avoid him renting a vehicle.
Imagine our circumstance:
Scenario (what we did): Explain to him that the low compression reading would require considerably more time and money to diagnose and could result in the eventual replacment of his motor in the event that the cylinder wall was dmamaged. In this case, he would have had to commit considerably more time and money to the process and wouldn't have had a vehicle to complete his hunt or return to Colorado. He identified his willingness to consider trading the vehicle and our only choice was to assess it's value (without considerably more time and money to diagnose the issue) as if the vehicle might need a motor replacement (worst case scenario). Hence our statement to him that it was only worth $(scrap value as the truck wasn't worth more than the cost of motor replacement). He chose, at that point, to rent a vehicle in order that he be able to complete his hunt and return home. He could have chosen to trade and he could have chosen to allow us further diagnosis time ($), but neither satisfied his need to hunt that weekend. So, he rented a car. In this scnario, I'm not sure how rental cost could have been avoided. As it regards our bill ($215.48), after my research I believe we did what we were paid for. We diagnosed his misfire as low compression and explained that it woudl require considerably more time and money to identify the specific issue. Mr*** chose not to do any further work and to ponder trading the vehicle (or selling it to one of my staff as he eventually decided to do). Without a copy of the eventual repair and another compression test, how can I validate that our work was done correctly or not? Finally, the shipping cost of sending the vehicle back to Colorado was Mr***'s choice also and had nothing to do with our diagnosis that we can't determine was correct or not. According to Mr. ***, he made a deal with one of my employees to purchase the vehicle for more than the dealership offered. That was a transaction that I was unaware of until he told me in one of the Revdex.com responses. Mr. ***, by his own admission, accepted a $offer from one of my staff to purchase his vehicle and to circumvent the dealership in the process. He chose to leave the vehicle at the dealership when he returned to Colorado as he believed he had arrived a an agreement with one of my staff. When my staff member was unable to come up with any more than $900, Mr. *** chose to have the vehicle shipped back to Colorado. My employee has been reprimanded as it is against our compnay policy for our employees to engage in any automotive related business with a customer of the dealership, specifically in and around the time said customer is attempting to do business with the delaership. However, this arrangement was never brought to my or any other or my management staff's attention. Presumably, Mr. *** knew he was doing business with one of my employees and not the dealership. How can it be the dealerships's fault that he chose to ship the vehicle back to Colorado?
Scenario (what could have happened): We could have replaced the injector. It would have taken a day or two just to get parts and, I believe, wouldn't have fixed the root problem of low compression. In sucha circumstance, the rental would not have been avoided, our diagnosis fees wouldn't have been avoided, and the shiipping might not have been necessary. However, when the injector didn't permanently solve the problem, Desert Sun could have been at risk for the claim that our incomplete repair facilitated the ultimate demise of Mr***'s engine. That would be a much harder position to defend and much more costly mistake.
I restate my willingness to pay for any fees our ineptitude caused for Mr. ***. I will need to see a copy of the eventual repair and to have a compression test done on the truck, at a dealership of my choice, in order to decide whether we truly caused any of the expenses Mr. *** incurred

The Dealership wanted the repair invoice from the mechanic that fix my truckThis is the invoice indicating there was nothing wrong with the engine compression

Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because:
Regards,
[redacted] [To assist us in bringing this matter to a close, the consumer must give a reason why they are rejecting the response. If the consumer does not provide a reason if he complaint will be closed Administratively Resolved] This is absolutely the wrong choice by this dealership. I will began legal process with the New Mexico District Attorney for resolution of these expenses.  The Dealership told me and my partner that they placed a new fuel injector on the #8 cylinder and the problem did not go away.  In fact, the technician took my truck for a test drive after placing a new fuel injector on my truck.  After a 5 or so minute test drive, they came back with the story the problem was not going away.  The truck is working fine and to date there have been no problems with the operation of the truck.  I would not have incurred these expenses if the dealership actually did test and repair my truck.  Therefore, I expect full reimbursement of the invoices I sent to the dealership.[redacted]

Thank you for answering my questions.  I will square them up with the data I have collected in house regarding your request and get back to you after receipt of the items I requested.  Please forward me a copy of the receipts for all the items you are requesting reimbusrsement for so that I can review them.  I truly want to make sure we handle this appropriately for you. Travis H[redacted]

I am getting the invoices together and will forward them to you once I have them all.[redacted]
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
Regards,
[redacted]