<p>Did you leave the dealership with the car and then bring it back? Is there a 3 day right of recision on those deals? Thats pretty amazing if they let you cancel the deal without putting up a fight. Of course there is possible fraud involved so they have to behave, I would guess, but still-- car dealerships and ethics arent two words often used in the same sentence.</p>
<p>Not to bash Acura, but this is not the first (or even second) report of Acura dealers trying to sell damaged cars as new ones. Eons ago, a local lady was picketing the Acura dealership that sold her a car with cracked frame (the car was accidentally dropped when it was being unloaded from the ship) and refused to take it back. Wow, good for you that you spotted the damage and did not take the car!</p>
<p>Never left the dealership, just went to inspected the car before they added the accessories we wanted. Actually, they haven’t even run my credit check yet for the 0.9% financing and are still holding my check.</p>
<p>My salesman said if they sold the car to someone and it turns out it has been damaged, there could be a law suite. I do believe my dealer was unaware and are trying to get to the bottom of this. I really don’t care what the outcome is as I am not getting that car under any circumstances.</p>
<p>Not to start up the comps all over again… But I really love my 2007 Toyota Highlander Hybrid. It is the last year before they switched to the current model type- which I like much less because is too large and clunky and van/boat like.
I did compare the Highlander to the Acura RX- I liked the Highlander better! It has much more space and the details were not that much better in the RX.
It is not super huge, but does have the third row. It drives like a dream and the seating is super-comfy. I have had virtually no problems with it, and am already worried about ever finding a car I like better… The 2007 is valued around $20k in the used section of the most recent auto issue of Consumer Reports. I may even turn mine in a for a used (CPO) one in a few more years or miles, I like it so much!
P.S. DH has a jazzy BMW 3-series sedan. I noticed he always uses my car every chance he gets… He finally fessed up that he prefers the feel of my car. Too funny!</p>
<p>snowball - Good for you! One should always check a new car with a fine tooth comb. These cars have quite a path to go down from the factory to the dealer. In your case I believe it’s from Canada, where the MDX is manufactured, to wherever you are. It comes off the line, into a parking lot with lots of other vehicles, then onto a train or car carrier or even a ship. It then does more bumps and grinds to get offloaded from there, transported to the dealer lot, jostled around there as they constantly reconfigure the cars, often by a lot jockey who’s not necessarily the most careful person in the world, sometimes transferred between dealers as in your case, possibly test driven by multiple people, and then finally declared to be yours. A lot can happen along this way.</p>
<p>I think it’s fully possible and perhaps even likely that your dealer didn’t know about the damage. Since they want the sale, NOW, I’m also surprised they didn’t put up more pressure for you to take it anyway and they’d ‘sort it out’ later. This speaks reasonably well for your dealer if the above is the case.</p>
<p>Good luck on your replacement.</p>
<p>Yes, the MDX is built in Canada, enters the states in Buffalo and then goes to Jacksonville, Florida before heading to the dealer’s lot. I don’t know where this car was damaged, and don’t really care; I just know I wasn’t buying it! Yes, my salesman wanted this sale; actually another salesman tried to convince me not to buy it before it came in as he wanted it for his customer. My salesman said this other salesman was having a bad month and really needed the sale. If was interesting watching this salesman try to get the car from me; well he can have it now!</p>
<p>By now going out of state myself it looks like I will actually get a bit of a better price. Of course with the price of gas I might spend that much going to get the car 
Now I do worry about buying a car from a distance as I can not check it out before they install the accessories. Hopefully I won’t get burned twice.</p>
<p>I bought myself a Ford Escape Hybrid three weeks ago, trading in my Audi A6 sportwagon (100K miles). My first American-built car since I sold my '71 Mustang. I have to say that I’m very happy with the car. I’m getting almost 28 mpg , there’s lots of room for my two dogs, it’s much easier to park than the Audi (it’s almost 2 feet shorter and a bit narrower), the financing was good, and that little spot in my back that hurt after two hours of driving… doesn’t.</p>
<p>dmd77-Congrats on the new wheels! We have rented Ford Escapes when we would visit my daughter at her college up North; I thought it was a great small SUV, just too small for my everyday driving. It is amazing what a comfortable seat will do for your back and legs!</p>
<p>Update: the dealer supplied me with the VIN, which I was able to use to find the window sticker on-line. It’s supposed to be built tomorrow, 4.1. In the interim, I learned about another Ford discount on the discussion board for requesting a brochure. It’s worth $750.00, which will go on top of the cash back, and the discount for working for the University.</p>
<p>Take a look at this interesting discussion on extended warranties. I’m tempted because of all the new electronic technology in the Fords, which they are have some problems with. It’'s based on Microsoft so it is to be expected. </p>
<p>[Extended</a> Service plan prices comparison thread - Ford Explorer Ranger Enthusiasts "Serious Explorations"®](<a href=“http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=312029]Extended”>http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=312029)</p>
<p>Hmmm - your vehicle will be built on April Fools Day?</p>
<p>I never buy extended warranties - the company is betting against you that you’ll pay them more than it’ll cost them - and they have access to all the statistics but you only have access to a few anecdotes at best. It’s one of their most profitable areas.</p>
<p>Cars now come with a pretty good factory warranty. You can just go with that and then just before that warranty expires you can decide whether or not you want to purchase an extended warranty - they’ll almost certainly mail you offers at that time (since they’re very profitable for the company). Who knows - you might decide to sell the vehicle and buy another around that time in which case the extended warranty would have been useless.</p>
<p>Also, electronics tend to fail early on if they’re going to fail. If they can manage to survive a few months, or especially a few years, chances are they’re not going to break. The exception is all the little electric motors in vehicles nowadays (seats, liftgates, back seats, etc.) but that’s not worth buying an extended warranty IMO.</p>
<p>I believe Consumer Reports always says not to buy extended warranties on vehicles. </p>
<p>Or purchase those types of warranties on appliances, computers etc.
Save your money! :)</p>
<p>Snowball, what a story about your ‘new’ vehicle. Brings to mind the new Caravan we bought back around 1990. Drove it home, parked in the driveway, and when the 6’5 neighbor came over to take a look, he noticed a dent on the top of the roof. Back to the dealership it went, and as we’d just sold the old car, had to wrangle over them covering a rental while they found and brought in another new Caravan with similar features. I think we ended up with a few more options than we’d paid for.</p>
<p>We bought an extended warranty for our Mazda that we owned eons ago. That was, perhaps, $700 very well spent. I surely was not kicking myself for buying it after two major repairs ($2k and $4k) that the warranty covered.</p>
<p>The peace of mind granted when buying an item where repairs can go into the thousands is worth the extra money. I’m pretty sure I am going to do it. Prices do vary, and I have a considerable amount of time to find the best deal. This is the first year of the newly remodeled Explorer. Who knows what unanticipated problems may arise? Note that they are already on version 2.7 of the software for the mysync systems in less than a year.</p>
<p>Your Explorer already has a 3 yr/36,000 mile bumper to bumper warranty and a 5 yr/60,000 mile powertrain warranty. You don’t need to decide right now to purchase an extended warranty - you have 3 years (or 5 years if you’r emostly concerned about the powertrain) to decide whether you want one or not and purchase one just before your factory warranty expires. After 3 years of ownership and more history of the reliability in general of the new version of the Explorer you’ll have a better idea whether it makes sense to get an extended warranty or not. </p>
<p>Why do you feel you need to buy it now other than due to pressure from the dealer who makes a lot of profit on these?</p>
<p>I know. I don’t need it right now. I can buy it anytime during the first three years. Plenty of time to get the best deal and see what, if any, problems may develop.</p>
<p>As to the power train: I always thought that was kind of meaningless until two summers ago the transmission in my 2001 Trooper died. Isuzu had a 100,000 mile warranty on it. I had 90,000. Can you believe that the dealership actually had a brand new transmission for a 2001 Isuzu?</p>
<p>The powertrain is where the big costs are so it’s the biggest exposure. By and large the engines produced nowadays are very reliable and rarely have major issues. The transmissions seem to be not as reliable as the engines. My Explorer (a 1991 - nothing comparable to yours) turned into an ‘Exploder’ largely due to the transfer case internally breaking for no good reason and ‘sticking’ me quite far from home or even a place where I could rent a car for the week it took them to fix it (luckily - under warranty since it happened I think within the first coupld of years). </p>
<p>Some of the options nowadays - nav systems, high end HDD based stereos, flat screen TVs, motorized liftgates, back seats, etc. could be costly to repair but again, if the electronic items manage to work for 3 years they’ll likely not break. The exception is motorized items but I don’t know how the reliability of the powered liftgates, etc. have been.</p>
<p>The standard factory warranties have really improved and so has the quality of most vehicles and components. </p>
<p>That’s good timing on your Trooper - I can understand how that can make a person nervous about expensive components when out of warranty. For me anyway, an extended warranty would have always cost me more than the repairs would have cost. It’s just a matter of risk like any insurance policy.</p>
<p>tsdad- Did you check the VIN on Carfax.com or somewhere else? I would love to check on my new car that is suppose to be built this week, but I was not aware you could check on a car in production. I have used carfax when looking for used cars, so that would be cool if I could check out my new car there also.</p>
<p>nissan murano hard-top convertible.</p>