Yes my dad fell for that fallacy a few years ago. My sister out in California wanted to sell her ‘02 BMW X5 SUV but the stealers only offered her like $1500 which was a joke back in 2016/2017. My dad gave her a few $k and paid to have it shipped to Florida. He was loving the idea he was driving a vehicle that cost over $100k now for a few $k and my sister did quite a bit of upgrades already like new chrome 20” rims and tires, new brakes, tinted windows etc. Then the trickle of issues glitches. First the drivers electric window stopped working. $1k to fix. Then the passenger window…. $1k. Then he found another repair shop that serviced BMW that was much cheaper than the dealer. Gave him a deal to replace valve cover gaskets that were leaking and a few other things to replace while the engine was accessible $2500. Then the same window that didn’t work stopped again. It was under the warranty but not the labor $400-$500. On and on and on. I forget what the final straw was…. Rear main seal or something with the tranny but he saw how my ‘12 Kia Sportage was rock solid and he found one at the dealer but newer. His ‘16 was still under warranty at the time of purchase and he paid for an additional 5 year warranty after that expires. He’s never had to take it in for service, so he doesn’t miss that old BMW much even though it was way more luxurious and has a more powerful 6 cylindr engine and sat higher off the ground, but he’s getting better mpg and saving in repair costs. He had that same “money pit” experience with the prior ‘94 Lexus SC400. Every time he went to the dealer was thousands in repairs and at that time the car was worth less than the repairs he was getting
Talk about the school of hard knocks! But sounds like the lesson was well learned.
About eight years ago, the electric sunroof on my Ford Expedition stopped working. The motor worked, but it had somehow gotten off the track. It was still in warranty, so I called the dealer and arranged the repair; their shop was really busy, so the date was about three weeks out which was no problem for me. I had a record with the Ford dealer of reporting the failure on that phone call within warranty.
So I took the car in three weeks later and they said “Tough luck, your warranty expired.” It actually expired during that three week interval between my phone call setting the appointment and the appointment date!
I said “That’s just crazy! I reported it to you three weeks ago when it was under warranty. I would have brought it in for repair that day if you had an opening! That phone call date should be the date of record for warranty repairs.”
They replied “Nope, doesn’t matter, it’s when you bring it into the shop for repair.”
I said (getting really pissed now) “YOUR SHOP WAS FULL THEN! This is the first date you gave me!”
They replied “Too bad, $4,000 please! And a $200 ‘diagnostic fee,’ too”
I escalated several levels with Ford and got the same BS answer at every level, all the way to corporate HQ. I finally called the dealer I bought the car from (about 100 miles away) and he said “We’ll take care of it.” They are a high volume dealer and, in just one call, they got Ford to see the error of their ways. I got it fixed under warranty. What a great dealer — I was just a one-off customer, not a repeat or fleet customer of them.
Lots of lessons learned there. Perhaps the most important is check your warranty dates and mileages if you are near the end of your warranty. And be very wary of stinking car companies screwing you.