Nippon Automotive Service

Do NOT buy a car here. I purchased a convertible from them three months ago. A 41k (sticker price) pre-​owned car. The morning I drove it off the lot I stopped for gas. After filling it, the needle went to Empty and stayed there. The oil gauge needle went to Empty as well. Okay. That night while driving, I noticed a film on the windshield. I went to the car wash the next day and it still didn’t come off. I went to Safe-​Lite auto glass and they told me it was a build-​up of some kind and wasn’t removable. I had to replace the windshield (335.00). That’s not even the beginning… just guess what happened the first time it rained??? Bingo!!! The entire interior of the roof was soaked and dripping into my car. You guessed… the roof needed to be replaced to the tune of 2300.00. Add to the fact (and keep in mind this is just within the first week of having the car), the headlights wouldn’t turn off, the sideview mirror adjuster was broken, and the tires were completely bald. New tires — 1,000.00. This week I finally decided to get the gas gauge fixed. Imagine my surprise when my trusty mechanic called me to tell me that they found several other things wrong with the car. The complete estimate came to 4800.00!!! This place has been in trouble with the Better Business Bureau several times. Any good reviews are fake. Believe me, my «wonderful car that drives so well» (as the idiot «salesman» told me), has cost me almost $ 10,000.00 to repair!!! Look at the BBB reviews before purchasing anything from this place.

Where do I start. My experience at this place was one of the most stressful experiences that I have ever had in my life! To fully understand, let’s start from the beginning. My husband and I drive a lot… and we live in Fort Drum, NY where the prices of used cars are extremely high due to the military presence. Our car died with almost 200K miles on it and we needed to get a car ASAP. I drive about an hour and a half to school 2 – 4 days a week and so we needed to have two reliable cars. Initially, we were going to wait a couple of weeks and my husband was going to ride his motorcycle to school, but two days after the car died, he separated his shoulder and was unable to ride his motorcycle… which meant I had to drive him to and from work between my three hour drive to and from school. NOT FUN!
We went to NJ because that’s where he’s from and we knew we would be able to find a car giving the short amount of time we had. We went to several dealers and saw two or three cars we liked with a price that we were comfortable with. We came to Nippon to look around and were greeted by one of the associates. He brought us inside of the office area and we looked through the computer at the various cars they had. After finding four or five cars that we were interested in we proceeded outside to take a closer look. The first car was nice, but we didn’t feel that connection. As we continued to the next car, I was handed the keys (the spaces were tight and my husband couldn’t fit between the cars) and as I started the car I instantly fell in love. The downfall– it was about $ 3000 over our budget. The interior looked clean, the engine looked clean, there were a few scratches and dings but it was a used car in NJ. After seeing several other cars we knew this was the one we wanted. We looked online again and saw the price was $ 1000 under the price written on the car. We decided to leave to look at other places (this seemed too good to be true) and discuss the purchase between ourselves overnight.
The next day we returned to the area for lunch. Around 1230 we called the office and asked them to remove the car from the lot by 230 so that we could test drive it. We arrived around 245 and saw that the car had not been moved. We were greeted by the same associate from the previous day and asked to see the car again. As he brought the keys out his associate followed and informed us that the mileage on the odometer was incorrect and the true mileage is unknown but estimated to be significantly higher than the reading. While this was disappointing for us, we still requested to test drive the vehicle. After badgering us for an offer he told us that our offer was too low for it to be worth taking the car out of the lot.
Of course we said thank you, and left. Shortly after, we received a phone call from the original associate we spoke with– his boss was willing to accept our offer and allow us to test drive the car. By the time we got back (15 minutes later) the car was still in the lot unmoved. Eventually we were able to test drive the car and agreed to make the purchase.
Our previous car had NJ plates and so we requested to have the plates transferred to the new car. Being the weekend, this wouldn’t be completed until Tuesday (holiday weekend) and so we left with the car, temp plates, and a temp registration. The car was put on a credit card as this establishment wouldn’t accept a personal check (understandable) and we didn’t think to call the bank to authorize a debit that large. On Tuesday, we received a call saying that the money had been placed into a fraudulent account and until they received the money, they wouldn’t transfer the plates and give us the title and registration. Eventually it was sorted out but the process took approximately one week to get straightened.
This entire process just seemed like more trouble than it was worth. Our last car purchase seemed so easy compared to this. We will definitely not be doing business here again.