The dealer says that since the customer had a lien on the car she didn’t really own it, so they had the right to do as they pleased with it
June 13, 2024 at 16:11
- A used car dealer in Knoxville, Tennessee reportedly sold a customer’s car instead of repairing it.
- The customer says they never missed a payment and that the dealer didn’t explain to her why it sold the car.
- The dealer claims that it’s justified because the owner drove the car too much and that the transmission was unrepairable.
A woman in Knoxville says that her used-car dealer of choice sold her car when she brought it in for service. According to Lindsey Thompson, she’s now out almost $2,700 and doesn’t have a way to get around. The dealer says it was well within its rights to sell the car and that ultimately, she never really owned it to begin with.
That buy-here / pay-here dealer is Cherokee Auto Sales in North Knoxville. It sold a Ford Taurus to Thompson back in June 2023. Documents show that the customer paid $700 down and has since spent almost $2,700 in total for the car since the purchase. Additionally, she invested $995 in a “service contract” when she bought it. It was supposed to cover the car for 12,000 miles or 12 months, whichever came first.
Read: Florida Woman Calls Police To Report Herself Stealing A Car
She brought the Taurus back to Cherokee when she had transmission trouble in November and that’s when things went south. She tells ABC 6 that 10 days after dropping it off, she returned and was told that the dealer had sold the car at an auction.
“Too many miles on the warranty,” said Thompson. “They just kept saying something about the mileage on the car.” That’s all the explanation she got. They returned her plate to her and from what it seems like, washed their hands of it.
At this stage, the news crew attempted to interview a salesperson at Cherokee but didn’t get anywhere. Instead, the dealer called the police. Thompson says that she just wants her car or her money back. Based on the dealer’s new response, that doesn’t seem likely.
Cherokee Auto Sales didn’t respond to ABC 6 but took to Facebook instead and only marginally cleared things up. “It is important to understand that when a customer has a lien on their vehicle they do not own the vehicle until it is completely paid off. The lien holder, in this case, Cherokee Auto, is the owner of the vehicle,” it says in its post. So in the dealer’s eyes, it had the right to do whatever it wanted with the Taurus.
When it realized that the transmission was bad, it decided to sell the car and cut its losses. “The vehicle was looked at by a mechanic and was not able to be fixed. And was sold at our discretion at a dealer auction,” it said. Regarding the service contract, it appears as though Ms. Thompson was well and truly beyond its coverage. According to Cherokee Auto and ABC 6, she had stacked up 17,000 miles on the car in only five months.
To that end, it certainly wasn’t going to cover the damaged gearbox and then return it to her. Moreover, it claims that it had already repaired the engine after someone shot it during her ownership. We have reached out to Cherokee Auto Sales to clear up some of the story, but as of this writing, we haven’t received a reply.