Harnish Auto Family

Review

This is going to be a long one but thorough with my experience. I bought this truck in 2016 at the Harnish Subaru dealership although I signed papers for it at the GMC/Chevrolet dealership. It had 105,000 miles on it. Recently this year in March 2022 I brought the truck into the Chevrolet dealership to get a diagnosis of a potential head gasket failure at 123,000 miles (very little miles driven since purchase). I brought the truck in on March 23 and was told to leave the truck there for the diagnosis. I was contacted the next day and was notified that the truck did indeed have a head gasket failure and parts would be about three weeks and work would be started. It wasn't until about six weeks of waiting until parts came in and work started. They had my truck sitting there for the duration. In order to replace head gaskets on a 2005 Silverado Duramax engine they recommend removing the cab of the truck. I was told labor and parts would be a little over $7800 which is what I was anticipating it would be. Obviously that's not what the price prior to me and my wife arguing about later as the bill at pick up time in early June 2022 was over $11,000 with charges stemming from parts they damaged. The only issue with the truck was the head gasket failure when we brought it in March. Things would obviously go wrong with the reassembly of the cab back onto the truck. I was called by the service department to be made aware of several delays. The first delay was one of my heads for the truck was damaged and couldn't be machined so I needed a replacement. I was told that was little over an $1100 part. The next delay was the return fuel lines on the left and right side were leaking once they had started the truck after assembly. It wasn't until early June 2022 that I got the call that my truck was ready for pick up. My wife and I went to go get it and I was expecting to see a bill no more than about $9000 before taxes (because of the replacement head). When I got to the front desk I was handed a bill for over $11,000 and was told that was a deducted amount from $13,000! The bill showed them charging me for the parts they damaged but they “reduced” the labor rate to hide the damages from their internal system which only showed a complimentary oil change and the transmission cooler they damaged when reinstalling the cab of the truck. What was missing from the internal notes section was the damaged fuel return lines and apparently the seized upper steering shaft of my truck that they were billing me for and never called to notify me. This brings me to today that now I noticed I have water leaking onto my floorboard on my driverside which never happened previous to the removal of the cab from the truck. Do I take the truck back to the butcher shop and have them fix it? What else will get broken by them that I would get billed for? I am no mechanic and you shouldn't have to be a mechanic to buy a vehicle from a large dealership especially when they are supposed to inspect all of their used cars prior to listing them as inventory. So here comes the best part. I bought the truck from them in 2016 and I certainly didn't know why a hose coming from the coolant overflow tank would be folded in half and zip tied in place. Like I said I am not a mechanic but it always seemed odd to me why this was done. It wasn't until this past year I looked into it and removed the zip ties because the hose needs to be able to overflow coolant if the engine gets too hot. Why didn't any mechanic notice this before they put the truck on the sales lot? Once the coolant overflow hose was no longer folded in half anytime I drove the truck it would spill coolant all over the ground. Which is a telling sign that the head gaskets are bad. Which from my understanding the only reason that hose would have been rigged up in that way is to hide the fact that the head gaskets were already going bad even before I bought the truck. From 2016 to 2022 I only put a little over 20,000 miles on it. To be clear I am not accusing the dealership of trying to hide the head gasket failure by cinching off the coolant overflow hose (probably the previous owner so they would get a better trade in) but any professional mechanic doing an inspection should have noticed something wasn't right about it. Not that long after I purchased the truck I brought it in to have the hubs replaced and the steering box replaced as well and no one brought up the coolant overflow hose being cinched off. So my advice to anyone considering buying a used car from this dealership is take the car to an independent mechanic that you trust because they aren't doing their due diligence at this dealership. If this is how they “treat you like family” I would hate to see how they treat their enemies.

To Whom it may concern,
I am writing in response to the phone conversation I had with Mr*** regarding his Hyundai Sante Fe he had purchased from us in Mr*** called in and asked for a Manger and I was the one that answered and asked what I could
help out with todayHe explained his situation that he was having a transmission issue, and asked if there was anything we could do for himI asked if he had purchased an extended warranty and he did not knowI asked if I could check for him and call him backHe said that would be greatI found his original deal and called him back and let him know that unfortunately he did not choose to protect himself with an extended warrantyHe mentioned that he had the vehicle serviced at different locationsI asked why different locations and asked if he had brought it back in for us to look at, and he said the others were closerHe said it has been doing great for the year and a half so far then seemed a little sluggish so he took it in for a Transmission Flush drove it for a bit and light came on and started acting up again, so he took it to Hyundai and they took a look at it and were the ones that mentioned the damageI explained that different people have been into the transmission and we have not beenI also reiterated the fact that it is a mechanical machine and they do have failuresThat is why they offer extended coverages for the unexpectedWe sold him a great quality used car that that performed as it should and unfortunately had a mechanical failure a year and half laterI let him know I was sorry to hear of this and wished he would have chosen to protect himself with an extended warranty to cover the unforeseen
Thank you,
Scott B***
Sales Manager
Chevrolet Buick GMC of Puyallup

There have been some delays due to having an outside facility (Larson Dodge) doing warranty work on the vehicle. the client has spoken to our advisor and is aware that dodge expects to have the vehicle done by Thursday the 16th.