Here's the Update.
Barwick figured out that they didn't have a leg to stand on. The dealer offered full retail value for my "Stolen Car" which I took. I'm still not happy with the dealer since it took so long and so much arguing to finally reach a manager that realized how much they screwed up. I'm curious who's gonna get the blame when the owner sees they paid me $5500 for a car they re-sold at $1700.
This is a e-mail I sent to the DML (Dakota Mailing List). It explains the problem I had with my dealer.
Hey DMLers,
Sorry for the length but it's a long story worth reading. Barwick is a 5star dealer in San Juan Capistrano, Ca (Orange County), and this is my proof of why they blow.
Don't get me wrong, I love my '00 4.7L CC Sport+ black Dakota soon to have more power and better handling. Also I got a decent price due to Chryslers current rebate. Now the problem comes from my "trade in". In working out the details with the salesmen John(good guy) and the finance guy Gitano (not such a good guy) I told them that I wasn't sure if I really wanted to trade my '91 Nissan. They were only going to give me $1700 for my trade, for that price I wanted to give the vehicle challenged members of my family first shot. So the dealer said no problem, and gave me a "guaranteed" 15 day buy back on my Nissan. Also I didn't have the title on me, so the dealer asked me to bring all the trade papers and the title in if I decided to let them have it. In addition I left the dealer a $1700 check to give them a warmer feeling about not signing over the Nissan on the spot. After talking it over with my family, we decided to get my Nissan back two days after leaving it at the dealer. When I arrived at the dealer with a friend to drive my old car home they told me the Nissan was locked in a garage and the guy with the key wasn't in today. I thought this was odd, but they offered to deliver it to my door when they got the Nissan out, so I went along with it.
A couple of more days pass and I decide to call the dealer to see how getting my Nissan out of the garage was going. This is when they told me that the Nissan was sold and gone. Of course I calmly said "That's funny, I don't remember signing it over". I was promptly told to call someone else who didn't work for a couple of more days and was hung up on. I tried several times to get a hold of this new person, T.C., the sales manager, but my messages didn't seem to get through. I finally convinced the receptionist to flag down the sales manger instead of writing a note. This is when the Sales Manger told me "Tuff Sh%t" the cars been sold and all I can do is take their $1700. I conversed with the sales manger for 30 minutes telling him that they have no paper work to sell my car, and that I want either the car back or it's full retail value to replace it ($5400). The guy offered to do me some favors in the sales department to try and make me a happy customer, and to get me to sign over the trade they already sold. I didn't go for this since what service work does a new Dakota need, and it won't get my car back. Then he decided to threaten me with his "Team of lawyers" to get the trade paper work from me. I immediately asked to be forwarded to one of those lawyers so we could get straightened out, but he didn't want to do that. I then told him I was going to report the car stolen, because as of now I'm still liable for it. He didn't like this either, so he sprung in to action a told me he would track the Nissan and try to get it back. As of this writing the car was 1.) sold to an auction, 2.) bought from the auction by a dealer and then 3.) sold to a privet party, all without the proper paper work and it's still only been about a week. Barwick is now going to try to buy the car back from the privet party that bought it and turn it back over to me.
Has anyone heard of something so ridiculous. Chrysler must be pretty liberal with their 5 star ratings. I've been told by friends to report this incident to the Department of Motor Vehicles Investigative Unit and the Bureau of Consumer Affairs. I don't have numbers or WebPages of these organizations. Please respond to me if someone has the numbers of these places or thinks I should report to a different agency.
Thanks for taking the time to read this whole thing. I keep the list updated on what happens.
Jay