Car from metro lot breaks down in two days, dealership refuses to amend

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Just two days after Myron Tyler purchased a car from Cars KC, steam began billowing from under the hood. After pulling over to the shoulder, Tyler was unable to even get the car to start, the engine had seized up.

“My mind is going 50 different places at the time because I’ve got a 70-year-old mother in the car who has a hard time moving around,” Tyler said.

“We are stuck on the side of the highway, which is sloping down.”

Tyler had the 2014 Range Rover brought back to Cars KC, the Mission car lot that had sold him the car for about $28,000. He said the owner of the lot, Mike Ansari, was apologetic.

He said ‘I’m sorry this happened,’ Tyler recalled.

“He’s laying out everything that is going to happen. He’s either going to buy the car back, fix it or sell it to me at cost. He’s giving me all these different options. In my mind, I’m happy because I do want the car.”

Cars KC towed the car to Star Motors to have it diagnosed.  For three weeks, Tyler said he kept calling Cars KC for an update on his vehicle which was his only way to get to work. When he couldn’t get an answer from Cars KC, he went to Star Motors.

Upon arriving at Star Motors, Tyler learned that they had diagnosed the problem the day after it was towed to them, and the news wasn’t good. The car needed and new engine and a long list of other items. The total estimated repair cost was $24,820. This left Tyler wondering what Cars KC was going to do.

Tyler said Ansari told him that he would “piece it together.” Tyler claims he could never get an explanation as to what that exactly meant. Additionally, Tyler was told that no repairs would be made until he had made his first payment on his loan, which Cars KC had arranged for him through Westlake Financial. At that point, the first payment wasn’t even due yet.

Tyler didn’t want to make payments for a car that he wasn’t sure would even run again. Tyler wanted his money back. He sent Cars KC a certified letter stating that he wanted to be let out of the loan and to have his $4,000 down payment returned.

When Cars KC didn’t respond, Tyler contacted FOX4 Problem Solvers.

“I don’t want anyone else to be impacted the way I was,” he said.

Tyler knew what happened to him was wrong. Any used car sold in Kansas comes with an implied warranty, meaning unless you’ve been specifically told otherwise, the car you are being sold must be road-worthy. Road-worthy cars last longer than two days.

FOX4 Problem Solvers talked to attorney Bernard Brown who has spent his career cracking down on bad car dealers. He was shocked by Tyler’s story.

“This is over-the-top stuff,” Brown said.

“This dealer, on the face of what I’m hearing, had their own place examining it and saying it needs more than $25,000 of work and they won’t do it or take it back. These things sound completely wrong to me and the Kansas Attorney General certainly ought to get into this and the dealer section (of the Kansas Department of Revenue) and the local (Johnson County) district attorney.”

Tyler has contacted all those offices. The only one, so far, that appears to be interested is the Kansas Department of Revenue’s dealer licensing section, which has begun looking into it.

In the meantime, FOX4 Problem Solvers listened in as Tyler called Cars KC owner Mike Ansari to make yet another attempt to get his money back.

“It does not qualify for a warranty because you were negligent,” Ansari told Tyler over the phone.

But when Tyler asked him repeatedly to explain how he was negligent, Ansari wouldn’t tell him.

Since Tyler couldn’t get answers, FOX4 Problem Solvers paid a visit to the car lot on Shawnee Mission Parkway. But the woman who answered the office door slammed it shut when we told her who we were and that we were looking into a complaint by Myron Tyler.

We then called Cars KC and were told “no comment.”

So, this is a problem that, so far, FOX4 Problem Solvers has been unable to solve. The good news is that Tyler told us that Westlake Financial has agreed to let him out of his loan. But getting his $4,000 deposit back might take the help of the Kansas Department of Revenue’s dealer licensing division.

Tyler said he’s also willing to sue Cars KC for the deposit. After all, he said, cars should last longer than two days.

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