It seems cliché when people ask, Would you buy a used car from that guy?  Used car salesmen have a bad rep, but do they deserve it?  Are they any worse than new car salesmen?

I recently traded my twelve-year old car with 160,000 miles for a two-year old car with 15,000 miles.  It was a much needed upgrade.

I hadn’t planned on buying a used vehicle, but car shopping in the age of COVID-19 has become even less enjoyable than it was before.  The whole dealership rigmarole while wearing a mask is suffocating.

I’m all for masks, but they make me a bit claustrophobic.

I saw a 2018 model online with only 15,000 miles, which seemed like a pretty good deal, so I arranged a test drive.

Broomhilda and I headed into the city for what we thought was just an out-of-the-house adventure.

Yada, yada, yada, I bought the car.  They beat me up on the price, but that’s my fault.  I wasn’t prepared and I was anxious to get out of there and out of my mask.

Their job is get the most for their cars and they were better at it that day than I was.  I just about gave them my old car.

On the way home, the dashboard indicated that I had a flat, so I drove directly to a Just Tires where we discovered a huge hole in one tire.  A “panel of experts” convened around the tire and decided that there must have been something lodged in the tire that centrifugal force dislodged at highway speed.

Twenty-five MPH OVER highway speed, in fact, but don’t tell anyone.

After a day or two of mulling over the situation, the dealer decided to reimburse me for a new tire, which was reasonable, if not ideal.

Tires should be replaced in pairs, but that’s another discussion entirely.

A few days later, while installing a WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT license plate frame on my “new” car, I discovered the license plate was screwed directly into the car body, not attached to a license plate bracket.

Not only that, but the screws were so long that they hit whatever is back there inside the tailgate.

When informed of this really bizarre turn of events, my salesman, previously my best friend in the world emailed me the following:  Our people would have never drilled the holes on the body of the vehicle. They were already there, sorry.

A wise lady once told me that when people say, We never do this or We always do that, they’re probably just covering their ass.

If drilling into a customer’s car is something that is forbidden and NEVER DONE at this dealership, why didn’t someone mention that they found holes drilled into my car?

According to the Carfax report, this car was first sold in Northfield, Illinois and had only one owner.  It’s all but impossible that a car dealer sent a brand new car out with the license plate drilled into the car body.

License plate brackets come with the car.

Someone screwed my brand new license plates into the body of my car AFTER I purchased the vehicle PERIOD

The only question is, who drilled the holes?

The bare metal inside the holes was shiny, with no rust.  Had they been drilled even a month earlier, rust would already have been forming on the bare metal.

At some point, I will have to fix those holes.  Rust, like cancer, spreads.

I don’t know what the dealer should have said when I informed him of the damage to my car, but we never do that wasn’t it.

Pictures of the holes, the screws, etc – which I sent to the dealer – are available upon request, as is the salesman’s name.

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