Imagine taking your car in for routine maintenance. It's running smoothly when you drop it off, but not when you pick it up.
What happened? That's what a Corona woman was asking.
Lorree Cobb is walking a lot these days. She no longer owns the truck she loved.
"When I saw this truck, I fell in love with the truck. This was it. It was my dream," Cobb said.
She bought the Nissan Titan from Carmax last fall. She paid $27,000.
A few months later, she took it to Carmax for routine maintenance. And when she drove away, she knew something was wrong.
"Immediately I noticed a difference in the car. Immediately. Like it sounded differently," she said.
She said the engine was knocking, and the truck was sluggish driving up a hill.
"This is a big, huge engine. For it not to be able to go up a tiny little hill, there's a problem, right?" Cobb said.
A quick call to Carmax and Cobb said she figured out what happened. When Carmax serviced the truck, the employee used the wrong oil.
"I'm like - did you realize it's a diesel engine? And they're like 'uh, no,'" she said.
Cobb said she called Nissan and the maker of the engine, and said their response wasn't encouraging.
"They're like, 'Oh no, this is not good. He goes, 'You realize this is a very expensive engine, right?' And I said, 'Oh yeah,'" she said.
Cobb said she had the engine flushed. But she couldn't trust that the truck would ever run well again.
"I'd totally lost all confidence in the car," she said.
Cobb wanted Carmax to right its wrong. But she said the used car dealer offered her nothing. So she reached out to the NBCLA I-Team for help. Within days of the I-Team digging, Carmax called Cobb.
Carmax bought back the truck, bringing her debt to zero, and refunding all the payments she'd made.
"I was just 'Whoa, are you kidding me?!'" she said.
In a statement, Carmax said the oil mishap had "no impact on the vehicle's manufacturer's warranty," but as a "gesture of goodwill" it bought back the truck.
"It was just an awesome car. I loved it," she said.
Key takeaway:
If you suspect something went wrong during maintenance, call the shop right away and share your concerns, and document everything in writing.
