Stew

iTrader: (11)

I'd just like to share my experience with Girard Mitsubishi in Groton, CT and why I would like to inform others of my negative experiences there. I am posting this in the General forum for others inside or the NorthEast region, and also anyone outside of my region that may be looking further distances for dealerships, and also because this has general information pertaining to Mitsubishi as well. I hope you enjoy your read and take some useful information from this post...

First off I would like to mention that I HAVE been trying to get all of these issues resolved with them for the past 5 weeks, but they are extremely uncooperative and generally do not care one bit about the consumer, so it is time to bring this to the attention of others.

As a quick background, I brought my 2005 Evolution in on March 6 for a blown motor. The dealership is hands off in this type of situation, and all warranty requests go through Jim Sipriano (sp?) who is the District Manager for the region. Sipriano denied warranty work due to "modifications" which was obviously not the case. A bearing had spun after a connecting rod bolt loosened most likely from a warranty defect. But that is neither here nor there, and is not the point of my thread. Everone that has had warranty work attempted in the area knows of Sipriano and his terrible reputation, and this case was no less. While his ignorance saved him $10,000 in warranty work on my vehicle, Mitsubishi will lose the $32,000 I would have spent on an Evolution IX down the road, when now I'm looking at Subaru, Honda, etc and I imagine others will do the same after hearing about my situation. This will be the last Mitsubishi I own, and I hope others are swayed the same way by my experiences. It's too bad the Evolution is such a world-class vehicle, but the lack of attention from dealerships and representatives are enough to make anyone want to give the car up.

Back to the topic of the BLACK LISTED dealership...

Issue #1 - I bring the car in on a Monday afternoon, tuesday comes around and I realize I had left my sunglasses in the sunglass holder above the rear view mirror. Wednesday morning I arrive at the dealership to retrieve my sunglasses only to find them MISSING. Now I'd like it to be known that these sunglasses are ONLY used for driving and are not kept in ANY other location. I alert the service manager and give them the benefit of the doubt and I ransack my apartment. No luck, they were definitely in the car. I am now out a $190 pair of Oakley Half-Jackets. The Service manager brings this to the attention of the Tech, who claims "I have not seen them." Likely story, and I'm not suprised at his response. I bring this to the attention of the General Manager and he give me the run around and only claims that "We are good people here, we would not do such a thing." He does not consult the tech, or anyone else regarding the matter. I let the issue slip for now since the car is still in their posession and I'm already uncomfortable about it being there, nevermind having it there in the Tech's hands with him alerted that I am not fond of him. I bring this up at a later date (after the next portion of this story) as I'm taking the car back and when I mention the situation up again I get the same run around with no effort from them, and definitely no resolution. Mitsubishi Motors has been alerted, but they inform me that this is a dealership-level issue and they can do nothing about it.

Issue #2 - Since the warranty repair has been denied I decided to take the car back from the dealership on Friday. I speak with the service manager in the afternoon and inform him I will come by around 5 pm (when they close) but maybe 5 minutes late at the most, since I have to leave work early 60 miles away to get there on time. He agrees that is fine, and informs me the car will be ready for me to take (as it has been for the last 2 days) with the battery installed (to open the windows for pushing it outside) and with the exhaust properly secured under the vehicle (the down pipe had been removed) and he will be there waiting for me. I arrive at the service department at 5:04 pm to find everyone had gone home for the day. I get a salesman to help me push the car outside so I can load it on a trailer. I get to the car in the back of the shop and immediately notice the battery was not connected as promised. I install the battery the open the windows. No real problem. We push the car 12 inches and the exhaust falls down. I speak with the general manager and he informs me I need to jack the car up myself and fix the exhaust if I want to take it today. Mind you I am still in my work clothes (I work as a Software Engineer for the Department of Defense out of NUWC/NEWPORT RI). I find some spare wire in the shop to secure the exhaust, jack it up myself and ruin a pair of nice $50 pants in the process. I finally get this settled and push the car outside to pick up later. I pay the $310 fee for a wasted engine tear down that the district rep suggested, then did nothing with, and continue on my way after bringing up the sunglasses issue one more time. This does not put me in a good mood.

I proceded to contact Mitsubishi Motors directly with my situation, and they immediately state that they cannot help and this type of issue has to be resolved with the dealership. Now there is no one in the Mitsubishi chain that cares 1 bit of my situation, that does not make me feel a sense of "Best backed cars in the world" at all. In fact I might consider them among the worst.

I would also like to share Girard Mitsubishi's reputation with the Better Business Bureau, which is extremely unsatisfactory:

http://www.connecticut.bbb.org/commo...compid=9000206

Summary of the BBB information about Girard:

Customer Experience

Based on BBB files, this company has an unsatisfactory record with the Bureau
due to unanswered complaints.

The Bureau processed a total of 10 complaints about this company in the last 36 months, our standard reporting period. Of the total 10 complaints in the last 36 months, 3 of those were closed in the last 12 months.


I have a claim in with the BBB, hopefully they can assist in my case.

Girard Mitsubishi is part of Antonino Automotive Group (http://www.antoninoautogroup.com/) with quite a few dealerships, all which I have heard similar experiences when dealing with customers.

If you are looking for a Mitsubishi Dealership in the area, I have a few I would recommend.

Executive Mitsubishi in New Bedford, MA
Schaller Mitsubishi in New Britian, CT

That is all for now. Expect updates as I receive them.

Aux.

iTrader: (1)

Clown shoes dude... they are f*ckin clown shoes

su37su

iTrader: (2)

its like once they sell you the car they don't even want to deal with you ever again.

THE4TH

iTrader: (2)

That blows man. Keep up the posting and make sure everyone knows not to buy from them. Perhaps you can take an ad in the local paper to explain how they screwed you?

hardt45

iTrader: (2)

That sucks, Stew. To add on, I went in there two weeks ago to see if I still had some warranty left on my car (bought it used last year). Turned out that I do have a year and/or 12k miles left, so I asked them if they would cover peeling Brembos under warranty. The guy behind the service desk asked me what Brembos are. After explaining further, he turned me over to the Service Manager. The Service Manager took my name/number, and said he would call the rep (Sipriano I guess). After not hearing from him for a week, I went back in. He said that he would call me in a few days to bring it in and have the rep would look at it. Over a week later, and I still have not heard anything . After reading this, I guess there's probably no chance they will replace them anyway.

On a side note, during the same visit, one of the salesmen looked at my car (which is wingless) and asked if it is an RS (it's Tarmac Black ). After I said no, he proceded to council me on the fact that I needed to put it back on - "it's on there for a reason!". I rolled my eyes and said yeah, I was swerving all over the place trying to get here!

Kings Fan

iTrader: (2)

That sucks man, just aweful. Did you mod it?

Stew

iTrader: (11)

Chad, I can give you Sipriano's voicemail # if you want it.. PM me

The salesmen there are not the most knowledgeable either. Even the Tech tearing my motor down kept pointing to the transmission telling me it was the transfer case. That makes me feel good.

Stew

iTrader: (11)

It had a few mods. The main point here is with Girard stealing my sunglasses though, among other things.

Mods vs. warranty work is a different issue... intake/chip/exhaust/MBC = spun bearing? ....not likely, but thats for another thread

dayf

I doubt you'll be getting any kind of special care from Subaru, should you decide to get one.. They denied my warranty for a bad syncro because I had a kartboy short shifter and group N engine & transmission mounts.

They even gave me a hard time about replacing my faulty clutch.. Even though it was a well known TSB.

varnsun

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Charlie-GT

what a bunch of a**holes.....man that really sucks..

aklucsarits

iTrader: (2)

Wait, so why was the warranty claim denied again? What did the District Manager's reason for insisting on you paying for a teardown? What mods were done to this car?

EVOL EDO

iTrader: (1)

its all explained in his first 3 or 4 threads but basically he had minimal mods and the claim was denied because the district manager said they dont cover it because welll they dont cover it. they also claimed there was pre-detonation from over revving

Stew

iTrader: (11)

Warranty claim was denied due to modifications. Intake/TBE/MBC/flash. The Rep said I could authorize a tear down if I was sure the mods did not cause the problem, and he would inspect the motor and make a decision based on appearance of the motor. That cost me $310, he then claimed detonation, myself along with 4 mechanics and 10,000 EvoM users knew he was wrong, I called his bluff, and he went right back to the "warranty denied due to modifications". basically he SHOULD have acknowledged the cleanliness of the motor with no detonation present and considered the fact that I was correct, but instead he wasted $310 of my money, and now will have wasted $10,000 more after all the repairs are done.

Stew

iTrader: (11)

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