Orange Empire

Please don't buy a car here. Our son needed to buy a vehicle around a year ago. My wife and I wanted to take him to a dealer we trusted, but he went with his girlfriend's father to Orange Empire. The father bought a Cooper Mini for himself and left our son to fend for himself. He got sold a 2002 Chevy S10 pickup truck.



Within the 1st week he had the truck, he visited a friend in San Diego. On the way back on I15, the truck died near Escondido. His insurance plan allowed short tows, so he got it towed to a mechanic in town who dealt with Chevys. The mechanic put in a new battery, which we paid for. The mechanic said whoever sold him the truck really ripped him off and the truck was unsafe to drive. He was angry enough to file a complaint with the DMV, but ended up calling up Orange Empire and didn't get anywhere with them.



I used our AAA membership to have the truck towed back to Orange Empire, taking a day off from work to do so. When my son and I got to Orange Empire, the people were terse and unhelpful. They emphasized many times the truck was bought "as is" and there was nothing they would do to fix it. When we said the truck wasn't safe to drive and having the truck stall on a freeway was a safety issue, they emphasized several times the problem wasn't with the brakes and therefore wasn't a safety issue. When they raised the hood to look at the engine, I saw new plastic pieces (like filter housings, engine shrouds, etc) that were put in to make the engine look better than it was.



They ended up charging my son to look at the truck where they proceeded to tell him the engine needed to be replaced and gave him a quote to replace it. We felt Orange Empire made a lot of money selling our son a truck they knew had a bad engine and that they could make more money charging him to look at the engine and to replace it.



Our son ended up looking on line and found a discount mechanic in San Bernadino offering a used engine. Since the engine was cheaper than Orange Empire and we had such a bad experience with them, we used our AAA membership to tow the truck to San Bernadino.



When he got the truck home, we could see cosmetic work on the bumpers, truck bed and other areas to cover up damage. We also found the door latch on the 3rd door was broken where the door couldn't be opened. My son and I worked together to fix the latch -- it ended up being a simple repair that Orange Empire could've easily done, but didn't.



The truck has never run well since our son has had it. He has replaced the fuel pump, sensors and other engine parts to get the truck to run right, but nothing has worked. We can't blame Orange Empire for the condition of the used replacement engine, but they are at fault for putting our son into the mess he's in. He's still stuck with years of payments and has to live with the truck.



We tried the DMV and BBB and found we had no recourse to get our son's money back, get the truck replaced / repaired or to complain about Orange Empire. We were surprised to see, even with the lemon law, that people didn't have a recourse except to sue, which was problematic due to issues getting adequate proof and affording legal fees. Bottom line was Orange Empire could keep cheating people knowing they could get away with it.



Please don't shop at Orange Empire. We don't want others cheated like we had been. Thank you.…