Honestly, I would chase your state's protection first. That's a law, not a warranty. Will your car pass inspection for registration in NY with a check engine light on? You might have some leverage there because your car has an inherent 30 days 1000 mile warranty and if it won't pass inspection I don't think the dealer can legally sell you a vehicle you can't register. It would certainly seem to fall under the "engine" portion of your state's law. Frankly, I would pursue that with them for about a week and I would take them to small claims court. I've seen several small claims cases decided on Judge Judy/People's Court in favor of the plaintiff and they are always from NY because you live in one of the only states with used car protection when purchasing from a dealer. Every other state it's "too bad, so sad."

 

If you go to small claims and lose you're really not out anything past what you're already out. You don't have much to lose.

 

Do you think it applies since I bought the car from a NJ dealer? Is this something I need a lawyer for?

I actually got inspection done in it after I bought the car since car wasn't a NY car and it did pass

 

You probably should have mentioned that. Do I think NY law applies in this case if you bought the car in NJ? No, I do not. I'm not going to look that up for you. You'll need to research NJ laws regarding used cars sales. So you have a registration inspection in NY to assure the vehicle is road worthy? Look up the law in NJ. If used cars sales are as is, no you don't need a lawyer because you'll lose huge and no legit lawyer would even bother pursuing it.

 

Dude, go hear and give a brief description about your case.

http://judgemathistv.com/submit-your-case

You may have your case heard a chance to be on TV, get paid $250 and a free trip to NYC.

Let us know so we can watch it,

 

Not asking you to go out of your way for me but I really do appreciate all your time. I looked up the NJ lemon law, and it covers vehicles 7 years or newer, mine happens to be 8 years old. Looked up some lawyer sites as well that covered this. So there's that. I really just wanna fix the car at this point - and have to put my pride aside here and think about the safety and operation of this car. I still owe money on it. I'd really like some advice from a mechanic standpoint, the dad overview is also good It seems my options are:

- Go back to .. them .. ugh, and have them do the all the repairs and be out $700

- Take it to a muffler shop and try to seal those holes, and remove the heat plates for under $100 maybe, which I have no idea how to be sure of will clear CEL. There will still be brakes to replace (quoted $500 a side from local shops -_-), and struts and shocks for rear (quoted $1500 there).

End of the day, never again. This ignorance cost me big time.

 

Now might be a good time to learn how to turn a wrench. I bought coilovers on this forum, not just any coilovers but Tein Comfort Sports, for $600. I bought four new rotors from R1 Concepts for $300. I bought Akebono pads and a hardware kit for around $120. I borrowed a spring compressor and a pitman arm puller from O'Reilly for free. You actually don't even need a ton of tools to do these jobs. You can buy brand new decent quality coilovers for less than $1000. You could do all those jobs yourself for $1000-1500 and you could probably do them in a single day if you really got after it. I mean you're talking about the difference between $1000-1500 and $2500 minimum. That's a lot.

 

tatumjonj - you are quite right. I'd love to do the job myself, this forum has so many DIY guides I have used in the past to get small jobs done that would've cost me a lot. But I don't have a space to actually sit my car and work on it on major things where it has to be raised up or under the car. I always wanted to change the oil on my own and brake pads at least, it looks easy enough to do but no space unfortunately. Actually have been doing small upgrades to the interior myself. Just learned how to take the entire center console apart when I needed to wire in a iPhone mod.

 

That's tough. You don't have a buddy with a empty garage space for a couple days? Or maybe check with a local auto repair shop about renting an open bay. Some cities have something like that where you can actually rent a space to work on your car and they provide things like jacks and air. I used to pass by a place in San Diego many years ago that was a rental garage for apartment dwellers. If not then the only other thing you can do is procure all the necessary items yourself at a good discount and try to find a local mechanic who will just charge you an hourly rate to do the install. Like I said, it's not super time consuming when you're just replacing everything. I'm absolutely positive I could go out in the garage and do a complete rotor/pad/strut swap in maybe 5 hours and I'm not a professional mechanic nor have I ever worked as one.

 

I'll tell you this though, the last thing I would ever do is give that stealership one more dollar of my hard earned money.

 

I was actually just thinking of looking into that - I'm in NYC so even finding someone with a garage... tough. But the local AutoZone seems to have tool rentals and maybe have garage space I can use I'm gonna check. Either way - I know what you're gonna say but my cheapest and fastest option to get everything fixed would be to deal with these scums again.

Brakes resurfaced and cut pads, rear struts repaired, part before y pipe cleaned - free (ya right). Y pipe split at cost price, plus labor to replace that piece only. Its like making decisions when you're drunk. I just hope that the repair actually clears the CEL. Anything in the future I hope warranty covers, and I will never ever go back there again.

 

Call Toyota/Lexus Customer Care at 1-800-255-3987 and open a case regarding your issues to see if they are willing to look into the matter.

 

Will be doing that first thing in the morning. Need to call the scums by Friday if I'm going through with it.

 

Spoke to Lexus today. They said that I'd need to have a paid diagnostic done at a authorized Lexus service dealership and then call them back with the report. They said their managers may or may not just repair whatever is wrong with it. At the least they will try to mediate with the dealership.

This brings me to some issues:

- How much does this diagnostic job cost?

- If they start mediating with the dealer, I may end up not getting anything repaired at all as well as a counter from the stealership.

 

Better Business Bureau. Call them to see about your options. I have never heard of a car going for 5 digits as is. that would have be specifically pointed out to you. Hopefully you didn't miss that when you signed on the line. Honestly, I would work on the 700. Tell'em like 400. That is a pissy situation they put u in.