If you buy a used car at a dealership, but refuse the standard dealership inspection, it might not be a surprise to find that there are a few problems that you have to deal with. That is what happened to one man, after a used car dealer by the name of Odanis Salomon, @odanis.salomon, recounted the unusual tale after a customer bought a Ford F-150 pickup truck.
Sharing a video on TikTok, Salomon said that a customer came in looking to buy a new car for themselves, and was happy to go with something from the second-hand market. Thus, they duly purchased a 2011 Ford F-150 that had recently arrived, and it seemed like the pickup truck was in very good condition.
However, just a day after it arrived, the customer settled on the F-150 and decided that he wanted it straight away. That meant there was no time for the dealership to do any inspection on the vehicle. You can probably see where this is going.
Cue a dissatisfied customer who soon came back with the F-150. To hear the dealership’s side of the story, however, Salomon decided to take to TikTok to reveal what had really happened. He wanted to set the record straight before the dealership had a bad name.
What Really Happened at the Used Car Dealership
@odanis.salomon Customer bought a truck the moment it arrived from auction, didn’t want to wait for a full inspection/service to done and now, just a couple days later, the transmission went out… What should I do? #carbusiness #buyingcars #sellingcars #candlmotors ♬ original sound – Odanis Salomon
“I just had a customer leave the lot. He was very frustrated because he bought a vehicle from us that had issues. But let me explain the situation,” Salomon said. The 2011 Ford F-150 had just come in as part of a recent batch of pickup trucks and was sitting on the dealer’s lot.
He described it as a unicorn due to its really good price and the fact that it seemed to be in very good condition. But the customer who wanted it was determined to get it the very next day. Which meant the dealership did not have time to give it a full inspection, nor give it test drives to ensure it could be happily sold on to someone new. The situation was explained to the buyer, who was still happy to take the truck home.
A quick assessment of the truck was at least carried out to see if there was anything major wrong or if it threw up error codes. Nothing amiss was reported, and so the deal was done, and the new owner was given the keys, and off he went. But just two days later, the customer rang the dealership and claimed that the pickup truck would not start.
This Is What the Dealership Did Next
Salomon then went on to describe what happened next in the video. “So we say that’s fine, bring it to the lot, let’s see what we can do … he brings it to the lot, and it ends up being that the transmission is bad,” he said. The problems, however, didn’t end there, as it turned out the engine valve cover and gaskets needed replacing, along with a few other pieces.
This incensed the buyer, with Salomon stating he got very angry at the dealership. Which he did understand, as things can go wrong with a car, and it’s okay to be frustrated if you have only just bought it. But unlike instances where a car has been serviced, inspected, and maybe been on sale for a few months, this case was a little bit different.
The F-150 had gone through no formal inspections, and when made aware that there would be no time to do so, the buyer still insisted on taking the car home. So you could easily argue that had the buyer just been more patient, this would not have happened, and they would not have felt let down by the dealership.
Opinions Were Divided on Whose Fault It Was
At the end of his TikTok, the dealer asked those who watched what they thought. Opinions were divided, as some said the dealership should have stuck to its original policy and not sold the vehicle before the inspection was done. One said, “1,000 percent the dealer’s fault. Fix that car and teach your salesmen to say no.” Others felt the buyer should have just been more patient, because an inspection would have avoided the disappointment. Both sides of the argument are, however, completely valid.