If you are looking for a car transport company you are probably like my wife and I - looking for the best deal from a reputable provider. Well, unfortunately for my family we fell for the lies of All American Auto Transport (AAAT) and I hope you will not make the same mistake.
First, we were shopping for a good provider. You know the drill, (a) no car transfers, one truck only, (b) no sub-contractors, and (c) responsible employees. We believed the sales pitch we heard from the AAAT sale guy and their quote was reasonable (not the cheapest, but in the ballpark) - and we figured we'd pay a little premium for the added peace of mind.
Here's what happened. We watched my 2006 Grand Cherokee loaded up on the truck (in the bay area), the driver seemed nice, he was on time and it seemed like a good start.
We ended up waiting 4 additional days after the scheduled delivery date, and when the car was delivered it was delivered by a sub-contractor of a sub-contractor and the delivery paperwork didn't even have any AAAT information on it. We were so happy to see the Jeep that we almost signed off without noticing that the front bumper didn't look quite right - there was a larger than I remembered gap between the bumper and the headlights. So, I duly noted this on the paperwork and took the Jeep.
I was sure that something was wrong, but couldn't put my finger on it. Luckily I had taken pictures and video of the Jeep on the day it was picked up by AAAT so I started to watch the video and look at the photos, sure enough the bumper looked fine in my pictures.
But the real clincher was that in my video you can clearly see a bunch of scrapes and scratches under the front bumper (you know, where the careless parking job scrapes the concrete block in a parking spot) - BUT, on my Jeep now, after AAAT had it, there were NO MORE SCRATCHES! Obviously, some repairs and/or painting had been done on my Jeep without AAAT telling me.
Furious, and lied to, I immediately took the Jeep to my local dealer. The Dealer told me that the body didn't look straight; we compared to similar model years and saw the difference. They referred me to reputable body shop and they found even more damning evidence.
The body shop found masking tape under the hood, front fender, a non-factory headlamp, and poor paint job on the fender and bumper. Their conclusion was that the Jeep had been wrecked and improperly repaired. They couldn't tell how bad the wreck was, but knew that the fender, bumper, headlamp, and front fascia had been replaced and/or repaired.
So at this point I am still willing to give AAAT the benefit of the doubt - let's see how they handle this problem. Not good. I was immediately on top of things on my end, I had two estimates, photos, a video, and all the paperwork within 3 days of receiving my Jeep. However, after almost 3 MONTHS of run-around from the people at AAAT my insurance company is just going to pay me directly and take AAAT mediation (Subrogation) since they won't admit any wrong or pay up.
I am no gold-digger, I just want my Jeep to be in the condition it was in when they received it. Not with some half-a** repairs done without my permission and without notifying me. I am a reasonable person, and I understand that accidents happen, I just expect that decent people take responsibility for accidents that happen on their watch. Apparently there are no decent people at All American Auto Transport.
Do business with these people at your own risk!
-Jeff-
