Mathew Lee

Review of Absolute Auto Sales

I bought a 2017 Civic with 44k miles last summer. ...

I bought a 2017 Civic with 44k miles last summer. I saw the car listing online I purchased it over the phone, since I was moving from California for an internship (my mistake will never do that again). Mark was very friendly when it came to the sale, but the car has given me nothing but problems and there were several huge red flags I missed.

When I went to pickup the car, the AC was completely out, so Mark had to bring it to a repair shop to get it fixed (was told the Freon was out, but that shouldn't be the case for a 1.5 year old car). Additionally the front right bumper was missing some bumper clips and there was a deep scratch under the right headlight that was painted over. None of these issues were disclosed on the online listing. I was naive as a first time car-buyer and didn't think much of it at the time. After about a month or two the AC stopped getting cold, but it was late autumn by then. I put the car into storage for several months and pulled it out in July to use it again. The AC issue persisted, so I brought it to a Honda Dealership to have it inspected.

The dealership got back to me that the AC issues were the result of a broken condenser and compressor (`$3k fix) due to collision damage on the front right side of the car. From the painted over gash, missing bumper clips, and the right side of the condenser being smashed, the car was clearly in a previous accident that was not disclosed to me.

I reached out to Mark about the issue and was initially offered $300 in "good-will" but he quickly retracted the offer. I don't want to accuse them of hiding this previous damage, but even the Honda Dealership noted that the bumper must have been replaced or removed at one point due to the missing clips. Either that or Absolute Auto Sales has a really poor inspection quality. I saw that other reviews noting that the vehicles they purchased also had undisclosed damages, so I just want to warn others. Now I'm in the hole $3k as a student because I trusted them too much as a first time car buyer.