[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Paperbackstash

Well, exactly. There was no oil on the engine at all when we brought it in, and they even changed the oil and filter and said engine was fine. They showed us with the hood open with finger pointing what they would do on the car with a few things, it did not have oil spewing all over the place like it does now.

(snippage for space)

The Senior Legal helpline that we reached out to several times was helpful and gave us more hope, said we had a good case, and they arranged for us to have a lawyer with the only service available they use for Florida Seniors, Rural Legal Services, but then they called and said we don't handle that type of case. They handle litigation, but that's what this is. They said they can't handle it because we didn't sign anything at mechanics, (the estimate), but those mechanics emailed us the estimate, they always get approval verbally and don't have us sign. Also, we were told from others we've consulted that it was in our favor not to sign anything since we weren't agreeing with the services performed and don't want to sign that we found any services satisfactory - you can't sign the invoice until you pay the invoice. They sent the estimate to us in email so that should count as something without us signing it. It's just stupid.

We are about ready to pull out our hair from stress.

You know, if this had been a dealership, I would have said, reach out to Chevy, but as it's a chain...do you know if the Chain headquarters, the company that sells the franchises or whatever, is remotely involved? I mean, sure...they paid for the insurance, presumably (maybe?) but...I would try to find a way to do that. And if you haven't started tweeting bad stuff, etc., I would get on that too.

It's not Lemon Law, unfortunately, but...I should think that there would be some remotely-affordable legal help floating around somewhere. It does sound like prospective litigation.

Do you have Justice Court in FL? In AZ, JC is "between" the small claims and the superior court. I'd claim the value of the entire car and anything else I could and I'd bloody well file. I realize that from an evidence standpoint, you're not in a great position, but there are some commonsense elements here--like "if the car was covered with oil, why didn't they mention it?" that I think are on your side.

What about the consumer protection branch of the State Government? Or the AG's office, for fraud? Fraud in the inducement? Make the case that if they knew that the car had problems, if indeed oil was "all over the place," then they had to know that fixing the water pump would not address it and in fact, would likely cause further damage. That they had an obligation to tell you, if the oil were all over the place. And if it were, why didn't they? Why isn't it mentioned on the quote? Did they think that the water pump work was somehow going to address this massive, alleged oil leak? Or were they just trying to get your parent's money, for the water pump fix that would do nothing, to address or ameliorate this big leak?

If the oil wasn't spewing all over the place, then they have an argument that it was a good-faith effort. Make the argument that if the situation was as they claim it was, they committed fraud; if the situation is as YOU claim it was--the engine was fine--they committed fraud by wrecking the engine and trying to say it's your parent's fault or fate or destiny or whatever. ???

ETA: http://www.myfloridalegal.com/pages....256CC9004EC4F7

And: http://myfloridalegal.com/pages.nsf/...5!OpenDocument

Hitch