Donny Mills Auto Sales

Reviews 3

CH

Chris Hewell

SHORT VERSION: Sold us a Hyundai Accent. They allowed us to take a quick spin in the surrounding neighborhood with one of their guys in the front seat. At the low speeds we were driving, the problem did not make itself apparent. I decided to purchase....BIG MISTAKE. Less than 5 miles from the dealership, I feel a hard knock when shifting into 4th gear and the "Check engine" light comes on. Turns out the transmission is completely dead. Despite us making them aware of this immediately, they are unwilling to take the car back and provide refund. The odds of a transmission completely failing only miles from the dealership is highly unlikely. More than likely dealership intentionally cleared the check engine light with a Diagnostic Scanner so we would be unaware of the major defect. See long version more detail. STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY. LONG VERSION: On 8/6/12, "Donny Mills Auto Sales" sold me a 2005 Hyundai Accent GT. During the test drive, the gas meter was far below the "empty" line, so the dealership representative asked me to keep drive the car in the nearby neighborhood rather than on the main road. The appeared to drive OK and the price was fair so I purchased for a price of $2499. Less than 5 miles from the dealership, I felt a hard knock and the check engine light came on. Rather upset, I pulled over to the nearest gas station and gave them a call. The man on the phone (Ben Krebs) told me that I needed to talk to the employee named "Heath Schmitchen", and he would be in tomorrow (8/7/12). I drove the car to an Autozone to get to the bottom of the check engine light. The error came back "gear 4 incorrect ratio". The odds of a transmission problem this serious cropping up for the first time, only a miles outside dealership is highly unlikely. It appears that they may have fraudulently cleared the Check engine light with a diagnostic scanner so I would not question the vehicles soundness. The next morning (8/7/12), we called Heath as instructed. We basically explained the issues we were having. He told us that even though the car pretty much failed right out of the lot, they would not be taking it back. He offered to "send it to one of his shops", but mentioned he would not be paying to fix the defective transmission. Since he was not willing to pay for the repair, I saw point in using "one of his shops". I decided to schedule an appointment with "Charlies Transmission", a very reputable shop that has been in business a long time. The next morning I brought the vehicle to Charlies for a diagnosis. A couple of hours later, they gave me a call up telling me the car did indeed have a bad transmission! It would need a complete rebuild costing around $1800! There is no way I can afford this. Realizing I may have spent all of my saved money on a defective car, I am quite distraught. I now how a useless car that I cannot afford to repair, and have no money left to buy a working one... I am in the process of contacting the vehicles previous owner to see if this transmission problem was known at Trade-In. If I prove they cleared the check engine light with a scanner, I will be taking the case to small claims court for fraud. After reading their Google Maps reviews, it appears I am not the first one they have ripped off. (If for some reason they decide to refund this lemon, I will update the review accordingly)

KR

Krisha Collins

We were there a few days ago and looked at a van. The sales man said that it was the one we should take home of all the ones he had. We got it started up and it had a bunch of messages on the message panel. Of them some serious warnings of things to be fixed like the stability systems. There were like 5 things the van told me needed to be fixed Then we saw that one of the door handles was broken making it unable to open them all from either the outside or inside without pushing the power door button which may seem like a minor issue, unless something happens and your battery dies and then you cant use that door and you would have to climb through your vehicle to get to another door to get out. The vehicle also said it needed to change the oil this dealership says that it has all its cars inspected and if thats the case why wouldnt they do such a minor thing like have the oil changed before putting it out to sale. When I mentioned these things to the salesman he just stood there stoically. It seemed to me as if he already knew all of the problems the vehicle had and did not care and was willing to sell it anyway with no guarantee that it would work past getting it off the lot. He could clearly see we were looking for a dependable family vehicle as me my husband and children were there looking at the vehicle. And this is the van they suggested we should take home. I am very glad that we did not buy a vehicle from him, and I have no intention of ever going back or suggesting any of my friends go back. I will in fact warned them not to go back. I was going to give them the benefit of the doubt because they have some good reviews on here and some bad ones. Most of the bad ones they responded to on here saying they were sorry about their experience. I suspected at the time that I read these reveiws, that it could be that they were sincerely sorry that someone was unhappy. But that they also could just be trying to make himself look good by responding and saying they were sorry I now know in my heart, from the feeling I got from them while there that the latter is the case. They are not sorry that you get stuck with a horrible vehicle they are glad they have the money and they are just trying to make themselves look better by responding. I am very glad that I did not purchase anything there because I feel I would have been left in the lurch with a vehicle that did not work. Upon talking to my mechanic he explained to me that the stability system in that specific vehicle was very important and the wheels and steering wheel could lock up because of a failure of the stability system (and often fixing the stability system costs more than the car itself) that would be very dangerous to me and my family if we were in that vehicle. I will never go there again and I warn you not to either.

JE

Jeremy r.

DO NOT GO HERE!!!! THEY SOLD ME A PIECE OF CRAP! I had read a few bad reviews on the place but I was dumb and thought "come on, its a used car place,im sure out of hundreds of cars someones not going to be happy" but damn were they right, this wasnt a bad luck situation these guys knowingly sold me a lemon and then left me high and dry, the car we originally went there for that we had seen online was still there when we arrived ( hooray) the only problem was it doesnt have a battery and I cant test drive it?!?!?!?! nice to have mention this in the ad thats been posted FOR MONTHS, anyways we see a Dodge stratus that is in our range( before the inflated hidden B.S. fees) and we are assured by the staff( I think the guy worked there, he could have been some homeless guy off the street but he approached us first so I assumed...) that every car is inspected and repaired to make sure they are all mechanically sound and are in good running condition, test drive goes fine and we bought it, later that night Im calling them from a gas station where my new car is now dead in the parking lot, the car finally starts up and im telling myself maybe the shifter was stuck IDK im not a mechanic, well two days later when me and my family are stranded in the target parking lot we get ahold of Donnie and get this as a response " SOLD AS IS" thanx guys, I thought this was funny because we actually had a convo. in his office about this exact scenario and I was assured that some of the bad reviews he had gotten in the past were blown out of proportion and he had even offered to pay for the repairs and had the cars towed back to his place and blahblahlieslieslies, so after I get the starter repaired, I find out the rest of the horror story on wheels they sold me, I had mentioned to the guy on the lot it smelled like smoke alittle from the engine he assured me his mechanics inspected the car and it was fiiiiine and it was probably old oil or some on the engine no big deal, well the smell would be from the leaking radiator that needs to be fixed, add that to replacing the brakes that went out about a week later, new rotors and WTF IS THAT SHAKING????? when its all said and done I got completely ripped off by these people who took advantage over someone who knew little about cars. In other words they are your most stereotypical hole in the wall lemon lot with shady crooked used car salesman waiting to screw you over!