Reason for Visit: Service
I recommend this dealer: No
My Review of Lithia Colorado Chrysler:
My wife bought her Cherokee from Lithia in 2001. In late 2002 she noticed that the paint on the vehicle was cracking, most notably around the roof and tops of the doors. Lithia agreed to repaint the roof as covered under warranty. This year I noticed severe cracking on the roof. It was obvious that the paint repair was failing as the rest of the vehicle still has a deep black finish.
This June, we returned to Lithia to complain about the inferior work that they had done on the roof and to request a repainting. Here is what we learned on that visit and over the course of the 3 months it has taken us to get a definitive slap in the face from this dealership.
TJ Glick, the service advisor informed us he would investigate the repair and get back to us. After not hearing from TJ for 2 weeks on the status of the repair, we escalated to the service manager,Tom Mack. After repeated calls to Tom and several weeks passing Tom informed us that the paint repair was done by a body shop that Lithia routinely sub-contracts out to complete body work. Additionally, because my wife's Cherokee was no longer under warranty we were told by Tom that the only way the paint would be repaired was if the contracted body shop agreed to do the work.
So, my wife drove back to Lithia to have them take the Jeep to the contracted body shop. While in the Lithia dealership, the current body shop manager inspected the roof and agreed that the paint job was inferior and not done correctly.
After taking the vehicle to the body shop who did the work, they informed us that they would not warranty the work because, according to their records, they were instructed by the Lithia service manager at the time of the original warranty repair that the contracted body shop not strip the old paint off the roof before repainting. This is a known cause of premature cracking and paint failure especially in areas that receive direct sunlight like a roof or engine hood of a vehicle.
Since the paint job was considered out of warranty by both Chrysler & the Contracted Body Shop, no repair to the inferior work would be completed. Tom Mack instructed us to write Diamler-Chrysler to appeal their decision to decline fixing the paint job.
Lithia's primary defense in this situation is the amount of time that has passed since the warranty repair. If we had brought this to their attention while the vehicle was still under warranty, they would have taken action to resolve. Unfortunately for us, the repair work was "good enough" to span the length of the warranty, not the life of the vehicle.
All parties involved, including the current body shop and service manager agreed that the repair work was inferior. Nonetheless, Lithia has turned a blind eye to our appeals to make the situation right.
There's a old adage of business ownership that "if you take care of the customer, the customer will take care of you." A reptuable body shop will warranty the paint repair for the life of the vehicle because they stand behind their work. It is unfortunate that Lithia, a publicly traded company, has prioritized profits at the expense of integrity and taking care of the customer, even under the circumstances involving the two vehicles we've purchased from this dealership. The actions of Lithia at the time of repair and in dealing with the situation as the results of their work became uncovered this year speak to the attitude of this organization.
This experience has left us with no interest in doing any type of business with Lithia. I would caution anyone looking to purchase a new/used vehicle to consider the action of Lithia and to look elsewhere.
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