The Internet Car Lot

by Kjerstin on 03/02/2021

DO NOT BUY ANYTHING FROM THE INTERNET CAR LOT!! They make money off of totally scamming people with salvaged vehicles they “repaired” and had “inspected”. The inspection for most states to qualify as a rebuild title instead of salvage title is basically a sheriff looks at the vehicle and VIN number and makes sure its the same vehicle and not stolen. They do not look at the vehicle mechanically in any way. I learned this after about 50 phone calls to the State of Nebraska Motor Vehicles to see what I can do about this mess. I am sharing this review because we got completely taken advantage of and I’m hoping to prevent others from dealing with our same situation.. We did sign “as is” but thought we could trust this dealership and were hoping to get good deal on a vehicle for my business. They seemed very professional and honest in all of their communication with us about our salvage title/rebuild vehicle. We drove to Omaha from Sioux Falls and noticed the heat in the rear portion of the van was not working properly. They replaced the thermostat before we drove home. After having the vehicle for a few days we noticed the engine temperature increasing to an unsafe level and losing heat in the whole vehicle. After digging into the engine further than our initial inspection at the dealership, my husband noticed a total absence of AC lines and wiring harnesses/coolant lines hanging on the manifold. I let our salesman know what we found and he told us the mechanic at the dealership would need to look at it. We were not able to drive it because it was constantly overheating and had no heat so we had to ship it back to Omaha from Sioux Falls. This cost US 350$ even though it was advertised to have heat and AC which it clearly did not. Their mechanic put the AC lines back in and hooked up the wiring harness, as well as a new radiator (which was not the issue in the first place and we were not notified or asked if this could be done). We then had a friend trailer it back to Sioux Falls for us. As soon as we started the vehicle and let it warm up we noticed it again did not have heat and was overheating. No one at the dealership had driven this vehicle or tested it before sending it back to us. I begged the dealership to please take it back and just be done with this whole deal. The salesman said they couldn’t take it back but I COULD CONSIGN IT WITH THEM AND LET SOMEONE ELSE DEAL WITH IT. WHAT?!?! So they wouldn’t give us our money back or properly fix a vehicle they clearly didn’t put back together correctly in the first place but they would be willing to advertise it for us and let someone else BUY IT AGAIN. I can’t believe a business can function on total dishonesty and not take responsibility for selling a product that was not advertised correctly and a danger to the person using it. We then took the vehicle to a mechanic in Sioux Falls knowing we would just have to dump money into it to get it good enough to drive. Our mechanic told us after looking at it for fifteen minutes that it was unsafe to drive. It would probably need a new engine, suspension, AC and heat units and that’s not even after digging into it very far. He said it looked like it had been put back together by a first grader and to not ever drive it with my 3 kids in the car because it was a ticking time bomb. We are now stuck with a 12,000$ vehicle that is not worth it to fix but I don’t feel right about trading or selling to anyone else. THIS PLACE IS A FREAKING SCAM!!!! I know I will get a comment back saying I should have bought a warranty. They push a warranty on the customer because they KNOW you are going to have issues and a third party warranty company can then deal with it instead of the dealership. I do realize we were a little naïve in the situation but again, I just want others to learn from our mistake and not give this business their time or money. It is NOT worth it!!!

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by JoshuaC on 08/01/2017

They lied to me about how my car was totaled. Said it was in a wreck later found out it was flood damage. Not Bluetooth and all phone abilities that came with the car didn't work. They lied said it was from the wreck and was an easy fix. Since it was flood damage was no where near an easy of a fix as the salesman made it sound.

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by jrschott on 01/12/2017

My wife and I purchased a 2015 Subaru Legacy from The Internet Car Lot in November of 2016, that was advertised as “this car is in great shape inside and out”, and when asked if it had ever been in a wreck, we were told, “no, it has not”. After purchasing the vehicle, we found out the true story. The vehicle had been in a rear end collision in March of 2016, damaging the rear left and front end of the vehicle. It was deemed a “total loss vehicle” by the insurance company, sold to auction, sold to an individual owner, who had it fixed at an auto body and sold it to The Internet Car Lot. The Internet Car Lot has told me multiple times that they were unaware that the vehicle had been in a wreck, and knew of no issues with the vehicle whatsoever. Because the vehicle was damaged, but still has a clean title, the Subaru manufacturer’s warranty still applies, EXCEPT for all issues that might have been caused by the wreck. There are still various issues with the vehicle that were not fully repaired like: a dented muffler, mismatched body panels, and a dented rear left toe link, which is a SAFETY ISSUE. We purchased the vehicle for under market value, but had we known about all of the issues, we would not have paid as much as we did. The Internet Car Lot would not pay to have the existing damage fixed, only offering the repairs at their cost. We were scammed. After reading multiple reviews online about The Internet Car Lot, this appears to be their business model.

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