House of Carz — Local services in Round Lake Beach

Edit for reply: getting you to pay for my repairs was the most grueling experience ever my mechanic had to reach out so many times just to get you to pay. Without payment, I dont get my car, so no, not happy. Don't say you made me happy because clearly i am not, I still had to pay 400 more dollars for your mistake and you ended up with a profit. Don't bother replying, my review stays up. You can't scare me into silence.

DO NOT GO HERE. For your safety, just go somewhere else. I really wanted them to not be like other car dealerships, but they really are just as scummy. DO NOT TRUST THEIR MECHANIC. These are all around bad people that I had nightmares about.

My car has been in and out of the mechanic for months. I have PTSD from the experience this company gave me and they should be thrilled I haven't yet decided to pursue legal action.

They knew that the car they sold me had a timing belt problem, I asked them to show me the car fax and it wasn't on there, they told me there was nothing wrong. When I test drove it, nothing was wrong.

It stalled the minute I brought it home. I was scared and panicked. Crying my eyes out on the side of the road. I mean, I was scammed basically. Unlucky for them, I put everything in writing. My new mechanic (total sweethearts) at Affordable Auto on Rollins fixed all the problems this company's so called mechanic "fixed". I called this company about my car stalling twice, so I didn't trust them after that second time and I got a second opinion. I hate that I even bothered in the first place with their mechanic who one of the reps says "he sucks but he's cheap". So that's really great. I'm really unhappy I wasted my time with their mechanic instead of just going to the other one.

The scariest part was that I had to go to my new mechanic for a second opinion to find out that my car was actually a huge risk to drive STILL. I told Rami that I was driving far and I just wanted to be safe before I left after buying the car. If they had been upfront from the start I still would have worked with them on a solution. I'm very kind and understanding. But I genuinely don't trust this company to keep it's customers safe. They care only for money and they will lie, even at the expense of potentially your life. That makes me so hurt and sad because i thought we had some camaraderie there. I was scared and buying my first car and they made me think it was safe. This is the first time the trauma has worn off enough to write this and say that you should not use this company and I really hope it goes out of business. I will make sure everyone I know avoids this place for their safety.

I've learned my lesson. But none of my friends of family and none of their friends and family will be using your business. I hope it hurts when you all lose your jobs someday. I also reported you on CarGuru. Then, if you lose your jobs and have to panic to find a path forward like I did, you might feel a small bit of what I felt and some of your humanity will return. But I sincerely doubt there's anything in your bodies other than hollow dissatisfaction with how your lives are. I hope you can either learn from this or fall from your high horses.

This chapter of my life is closed. Do not make the same mistake I did trusting...

I purchased a car this summer, and waited until now to create the review. I'll try to differentiate the various parts of it to explain why I gave it this overall score (2/5).

The car (3/5 stars): I came to look at a BMW. That car was basically undrivable. I asked Rami if they had anything else and he showed me a VW CC with 90k miles and looked to be in pretty good shape. I asked why 3 tires had 50 PSI and 1 tire had 20 PSI. He blamed his employees' incompetence for that. Turns out, the 1 tire with low PSI was actually a slow leak I later had patched at Discount Tire. When buying used cars, I expect there will be at least one major defect. There was, and I spent about $1500 on replacing a seal on a part of the engine where the only way to get at it is to pull out the trans on this type of car. The part is like $15, but it's an all-day repair job because it involves pulling apart where the trans and engine meet. It was obvious that the car had an oil leak, but wasn't obvious on the lot unless you were to jack up the car on the gravel lot. If I was selling the car, I would have at least mentioned the oil leak to the buyer; it's obvious to me that the oil leak was something Rami would be aware of. It's a known issue/defect w/ manufacturing on these cars, but I had to bite the bullet on it. "BRAKE" light illuminated. Turns out the brake wear sensor was missing. Replaced that for $50. If I could do it all over, I would have used the lemon law to return the car, or to negotiate $1500 lower sale price. Also, all 4 tires have clear alignment issues/tire steel belt slippage, which means I’m buying 4 new tires to avoid more problems and now have to get the alignment done, too.

The day of the sale (5/5 stars): it was a smooth, quick process, although Rami said things that made me laugh like "OH you got a great interest rate" which made me roll my eyes.

After the sale (0/5 stars): as part of the sale, I paid for registration and title. While the title was sent to Westlake Financial (loan/lien holder), it was NEVER sent to Wisconsin. If you are a Wisconsin resident, you will have to pay for the registration and title a second time at the Wisco DMV, so just be aware of that. I ended up paying an additional $461 for municipal tax (Milwaukee), plates, title, registration. I called Rami/House of Carz three times, the Wisconsin DMV 5 times, and Westlake Financial 1 time, trying to resolve the matter of the title information being sent to Wisconsin. I was told multiple times by Rami that it would be; it never was. 6/25/24 - 9/10/24 it was not sent. This left a very bad taste in my mouth because of all the cars I have purchased in my life, including in different states from where I was living, this has never been a problem. Not once.

Would I buy a car from here a second time? Only if I brought my mechanic with me, was allowed to put it up on a lift to look everything over, prior to purchase, and only if I was someone who...

So I’ve purchased a vehicle from this establishment as an out of state driver and while the initial sale was good enough in terms of customer service, the aftercare is lacking extremely.

The title to the car I’ve purchased was filled out incorrectly by the seller, and one would think it would be easy to rectify this issue right? Especially when I paid to overnight the title back to their place of business? Well, normally yes. Most places would have paid to receive the title expediently and pay to ship it back express, at the very least ship it back with tracking included if not express. Ya know, in case it goes missing or takes longer to arrive I can figure out where it is. I didn’t expect elite armed mercenaries to hand deliver my title back to me, but at least having a tracking number (certified mail) would have made more sure my title is returned safe and sound while giving me the ability to check on when it’s due to arrive!

I paid thousands for my car. Paying a few bucks to expedite my title (which apparently they’ve done but didn’t give me the tracking) would have really shown me that they’re apologetic about the mistake (it happens, I get it) When shipping delays not caused by the shipper happens, it’s frustrating but also one of those things you can’t do anything about.

Edit 8/23/2023 Fun fact: I’ve given them an extra star since they actually did make the effort to get it to me in an expedited manner. I hadn’t known this before I posted the review, and it would have been helpful if they gave me the tracking number: but...