On April 4, we stumbled on what we thought was our dream car
down in Lehi, UT. A 2005 Mazda 6, with relatively low miles, in the color I
wanted, and in our price range? Heck yeah!! We signed the papers with the
dealer that night and came back the next day to pick it up. That’s when we
noticed that the car had one snow tire on it, and it was in terrible shape. One
snow tire? It’s not even legal to put only two
snow tires on a front wheel drive car! That should have been our first warning.
But the dealer paid to have it replaced so we forgot about it. (As a side note,
we sold my sweet little Corolla that same day! On KSL for 10 minutes and 3
people had called haha. I cried as we drove away from my first car.)
A week later, I took the Mazda in for an oil change and was
told it’d probably been at least 6,000-7,000 miles since it was last changed.
(2nd warning!) Jiffy cleaned my whole fuel system though and said I
should be good. A few days later we left for Nebraska. Ugh! That whole trip, we
burned about 2 quarts of oil every 100 miles. Talk about a long drive! When we
got back to Utah, we drove straight back to the dealer and told him to fix it
or we wanted our money back. They promised that they’d be able to fix it and would
even help cover most of the costs. After having our car until the end of June
and avoiding most of our phone calls, the dealer said that it was done. Levi and
a friend drove down to get it.
Not only did the car STILL burn oil, now one of the
cylinders wasn’t firing. We took it to a good friend up in Pocatello, and
prayed he’d be able to do something for us. After finding that the crappy
dealer’s mechanic had screwed up even more stuff, we decided that it would be
cheaper and smarter to replace the whole engine rather than try to fix the old
one. Thank heavens for savings accounts! We may not have one anymore, but it
was there when we needed it.
The “great deal” on a Mazda ended up altogether costing us
the same as if we’d bought one several years newer. In perfect condition. And
what have we learned? NEVER believe a deal that seems too good to be true,
don’t trust someone who just wants your money, and never EVER buy a car from a
creepy, sinister little Venezuelan man…
