![]() ![]() ![]() Liberty Honda recommended replacing the transmission, making Bryan feel even worse about her buy-used decision. (Good move, but a little late: When buying a used car, always have a qualified mechanic inspect the car before the sale.) Shamrock Motors inspected the car, says Bryan, but when she didn’t receive a definitive repair date, she took the car to a Honda dealer, Liberty, in Hartford. So Bryan filed a complaint with the state Department of Motor Vehicles (visit the Consumer Complaint Center at She also contacted The CONNsumer. The service contract doesn’t cover defects at the time of the sale.” “A dealership can give the impression somebody is covered when, in fact, there’s a gap. “There’s a question whether it’s an unfair trade practice to sell a car ‘as is’ but with a service contract,” says Daniel Blinn, a Rocky Hill consumer lawyer who devotes much of his practice to auto-related cases. State law obligates used-car dealers to sell vehicles that are “mechanically operational and sound” when purchased and during any warranty period.īryan’s Honda, beyond the state’s six-year limit, reverted to Shamrock’s “as is” terms and left her at the mercy of a third-party extended warranty, notorious for finding loopholes to deny coverage. Purchase price $5,000 or more: 60 days or 3,000 miles.Total purchase price at least $3,000 but less than $5,000: 30 days from purchase or 1,500 miles, whichever comes first.A used car no older than six years purchased from a dealer, however, comes with only limited warranty coverage: The Lemon Law covers defects in the first two years, or first 24,000 miles, of new-car ownership. Once she bought the car, she wasn’t getting her money back.Ī new-car buyer can request a refund through Connecticut’s Lemon Law regulations by filling out at arbitration form from the state’s Department of Consumer Protection. Paying $13,000 for a 7-year-old Honda Accord approaching 100,000 miles isn’t exactly cheap. “I had the money to buy a new car,” says Bryan, 34, who works at the Manchester post office, “but I was just trying to go the cheap way. Taxes, registration and an annoying $295 processing fee, known as the dealer conveyance, pushed the total cost past $13,000. Who wants a noisy shirt?īryan paid $9,995 for the four-door sedan with 94,274 miles, agreeing to the “as-is” sale price after paying an additional $1,795 for a 48-month extended warranty. But it made sense to treat it like a $13,000 dress shirt after the engine started making loud, ominous noise only days after she brought it home. Until she bought a 2008 Honda Accord from Shamrock last fall, Latoya Bryan of East Hartford had never purchased a used car. “Getting a refund on a used car isn’t like buying a shirt from a store and bringing it back,” says Ryan Conway, who owns Shamrock Motors in East Windsor. ![]()
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