Car dealership lied about vehicle

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lady4mycowboy

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My jurisdiction is: Texas

Back in Aug 08, my husband and I purchased a 2005 Suzuki XL7. I did some research online and spoke to several different people at the dealership about the towing capacity of this vehicle. I was promised by these people that it will tow the boat with no problems. To start off this wonderful experience, we had to wait for several hours just to sign the paperwork when we were told the finance guy was ready for us. Next, they had to fix the wheels before I would take possession of the car - there was a rough wobble when you reached highway speeds. Their mechanics finally narrowed it down to one of the wheels was "out of round". I demanded that they replace all 4 wheels if that was the case. They ended up keeping my vehicle for almost a month before they could finally get their hands on wheels that would fit. ( I honestly have no idea why it took them so long to find the right ones.) During this month that they had my vehicle, the dealership closes its doors for business. Talk about panic...they still had my car! AND I didn't have any paperwork on it either! They didn't give me any copies of anything when we signed originally, saying it would be mailed to me. I did finally get the paperwork after bugging them almost every single day.

So...now my car is still in their possession, doors are closing and they still haven't fixed the problem. After calling them every day and going over to the dealership about 3 times a week, my car is finally fixed. So I thought. I'm driving home, get up to speed, and to my surprise (not really), I still have a wobble. Took it to Walmart and had them balance the tires. Yeah, that fixed it! Oh well...I got new wheels out of the deal! Anyway...back to my original problem...

Promised that the XL7 would tow our boat. The first time we took our boat out, on the return trip when we pulled into a car wash, we noticed white smoke coming from under the engine. Didn't really think anything of it. Thought it was from water splashing up onto hot engine components. Second time out, same thing. Return trip, white smoke. Realized we might have a problem. Third time out, same thing again. Realized we really do have a problem. Now, we are more than hesitant about towing anything with this POS because we can't afford the repairs and it's our only vehicle.

I have contacted Suzuki directly and was told that I need to contact a dealership. I contacted more than one dealership and was told that I'm SOL and stuck with it. Also told that if we do blow the transmission while towing the boat, the warranty won't cover the repairs. Great. Oh..and the boat and trailer are well within the towing range of the XL7 by the way.

We are not in a position to be able to just trade this in. We've only had it about 6 months. Our credit wasn't good to begin with and has gotten worse due to a voluntary repo after we bought the XL7.

Any ideas?
 
What promises do you have in writing?
 
Unfortunately, none from the dealership. The only thing I would have would be websites that state the towing capacity of the XL7.
 
Well is it out of factory warranty or does it have a 10/100,000? I was not sure on it. As far as the dealership goes I doubt that you could get anything back.
 
No factory warranty. We purchased an extended warranty. There is also a manufacturer's powertrain warranty that's good for 7 years/100,000 miles. But I was also told that it may not cover the transmission if towing a boat which doesn't make any sense to me since the vehicle is rated to tow 3000 pounds.
 
Towing a boat would be on a need 2 know and they don't. Just tellem the trans is smoking
 
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