Underhanded work by Amigo’s Auto Wreaking - buyer beware?

My family’s old Cavalier in our driveway last Thursday.

    It is buyer beware, if you bought a red 2002 Chevrolet Cavalier in the last handful of days in Saskatchewan.

    If you are driving a red 2002 Chevrolet Cavalier with the VIN #1G1JC524927294381, you are driving a car that is not safe.

    That car was owned by my family. After an oil change back in April, the mechanic we took that Cavalier to at Empire Auto Service advised that the car be replaced.

The back end of the red Cavalier pictured last Thursday.

    The mechanic said the car’s frame between the back tire and back seat on both sides of the vehicle was rusting pretty badly. We were advised to replace the car before winter hit.

    I decided to get a second opinion. Through a contact with the CJFL’s Saskatoon Hilltops football team, I received a recommendation to check out Perfection Paint and Body.

    I took the Cavalier to Perfection Paint and Body, and they came up with the same prognosis as the mechanic at Empire Auto Service.

    The staff at Perfection Paint and Body said it would be near impossible to find the replacement part at an auto wreaker to repair the rusted parts of the frame. 

The extra set of rims inside the Cavalier pictured last Thursday.

    Due to the car being built in 2002, staff said General Motors had long stopped making replacement parts for that car.

    Thanks to those recommendations, a hunt for a replacement car ensued and added extra stress to a busy life. A replacement car was found in the middle of September.

    I thought about trying to sell the Cavalier on my own as a car that could be stripped for parts. I planned to put the note on any ad that this car could only be purchased to be stripped for parts and wasn’t road worthy.

    I did some research to see what used 2002 Chevrolet Cavaliers were selling for in Saskatchewan. 

The VIN number of the Cavalier.

    I found five or six ads from across the province selling that type of car for $500.

    At that point, I decided it was best to get rid of that car through an auto wreaker. My mom saw an ad for Amigo’s Auto Wreaking in Clavet, which is a suburb town of Saskatoon where my family lives.

    I left a phone message at Amigo’s last Thursday and followed that message with an email to Amigo’s last Friday morning. In both messages, I relayed the safety situation of the Cavalier.

    A staff member at Amigos called in the afternoon of last Friday, and a deal in good faith was made. 

The Facebook Marketplace ad seen of the Cavalier last Sunday.

    In that conversation, I reviewed the safety situation with the car once again.

    A tow truck came to pick up the car about a couple of hours later, as it was no longer plated.

    As I had a cheque in my hand, I figured that was the last I saw of that red Cavalier, which had been in the family since it was purchased new from a dealership in Regina in 2003.

    Last Sunday, three cousins came over for a visit, and one informed me the red Cavalier had been listed for sale on Facebook Marketplace by someone from Clavet going by a Facebook profile name Leah Jane. The car was listed for sale for $1,800 and the listing said the car was sold.

The back end of the Cavalier on Facebook Marketplace ad last Sunday.

    The listing included the car’s VIN number, and sure enough, it was the same Cavalier that my family had owned that was sold to Amigo’s two days earlier.

    If the listed seller named Leah Jane received the price she had listed for the Cavalier, she would have made a significant profit. A profit that was made on a car that is not safe from the knowledge that I have.

    I performed a VIN search on SGI’s website last Sunday and discovered it has been insured to Nov. 28, 2019.

    For my part, my deal to sell the car to Amigo’s was done in good faith, and on my end, I passed on the necessary information they needed to know about the Cavalier.

The extra set of rims in the trunk in the Facebook Marketplace ad last Sunday.

    After Amigo’s picked up the car, it appears in my view that the red Cavalier was quickly flipped around and sold. 

    It is possible Amigo’s had another 2002 Chevrolet Cavalier in their yard and used parts from that vehicle to make the necessary repairs on the red Cavalier.

    You could work through the night on Friday into Saturday morning to do that. That still seems too tight of a timeline to get the repairs completed.

    The advice I had to replace the car was just that. I never had any SGI documentation that stated the car was no longer road worthy, so you could in theory sell it as a used car for driving, which is fairly underhanded.

The Cavalier’s VIN number seen Sunday in the Facebook Marketplace ad.

    In my view, whoever ultimately purchased the red Cavalier got taken.

    Looking back, I feel I did all the diligence on my part, when I sold the car. Seeing how things likely played out, I wouldn’t sell another vehicle off to Amigo’s.

    As a person that was trained as a journalist, I felt a duty to write this post as a word of warning.

    For the person that bought the red Cavalier, I believe whoever purchased that car will have learned a buyer beware lesson.

    If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

-------

    If you like what you see here, you might want to donate to the cause to keep independent media like this blog going. Should you choose to help out, feel free to click on the DONATE button in the upper right corner. Thank you for stopping in.