Auto dealerships re-open – but is shopping there safe?

Buying cars at auto dealerships has always been risky.  But especially now, when you may be exposed to Covid-19, the risks are even greater. Plus Covid-19 isn’t the only health and safety risk you face if you shop at a car dealership.

Many auto dealers don’t care enough about their customers’ safety to take the simple step of ensuring that FREE safety recall repairs are done to fix deadly safety recall defects.

Auto dealers neglect to get free repairs done to fix killer defects like:

  • bad brakes
  • steering wheels that literally come off in the driver’s hands
  • exploding Takata airbags that are like having a hand grenade go off in your face, causing blindness or bleeding to death
  • catching on fire
  • sticking accelerator pedals

So can you trust auto dealers to protect you from Coronavirus?  Obviously, the answer is NO.

Even huge auto dealership chains like CarMax and AutoNation sell hazardous vehicles with safety defects that have killed hundreds of people and seriously injured thousands more.

They spend millions in advertising to lure car buyers to their stores, trumpeting that vehicles they offer for sale must pass an “inspection.” They list over 100 components that are supposedly inspected. But don’t be fooled. They routinely fail to fix components with serious safety recall defects that are likely to kill you or someone you love.

CarMax is the largest retailer of used cars in the U.S.  They raked in over $18 billion in revenue last year, and are publicly traded on Wall Street.

CarMax used to hire employees and task them with delivering recalled cars to nearby new car dealerships for free repairs.  New car dealers liked to get the work. Auto manufacturers compensate their franchised dealers for performing safety recall repairs, so it’s a money-maker for them.

But then CarMax decided they could make more money by lowballing consumers who traded in recalled vehicles, then selling them rapid-fire for high retail as “CarMax Quality Certified” vehicles without waiting for the free repairs.

AutoNation is also publicly traded on Wall Street and boasts they are a Fortune 500 company with over $21 billion in revenue. Their largest investors include the trust controlled by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

At first, AutoNation announced they would guarantee that all their vehicles were recall-free.  But when Trump was elected, faced with competitive pressure from CarMax for investor dollars, they gave up and started selling dangerous recalled vehicles too.

The kicker: If you are injured or killed, or harm someone else because of an unrepaired safety recall defect, the dealers will blame YOU for buying a dangerous car from them.

Learn more:

CBS News:CarMax Accused of Selling Unsafe Vehicles

CBS This Morning: AutoNation Accused of Selling Recalled Cars

CARS tips: How to get a good deal on a nice, safe used car without the risks of buying from a dealer

Why don’t consumers get safety recalls done? They’re afraid of car dealers.

Safety recall defects are dangerous, putting precious lives at risk. So why don’t consumers get safety recall repairs done?  Surveys show that a major reason is that many consumers are afraid of taking their car to a car dealer.

According to a report in the Detroit News:

“The big problem is that recalls depend upon the private vehicle owner to take the car to a dealer and get it fixed. In newer cars, that compliance rate is more than 80 percent, but when a car is five years old or older, the rate drops to around 44 percent, according to a new survey by ChecktoProtect.org which was founded by FCA (Fiat Chrysler Automobiles) and the nonprofit National Safety Council and announced June 22.

Surveys done by Autotrader.com show that a lot of car buyers don’t trust dealers to fix recall issues properly, and they also worry about the dealer charging them extra for non-recall repairs.”

Read more: Detroit News: “As vehicle recalls multiply, technology gets the blame”