Hi, four years ago when my fiance and I first met he went out and got a car from a used car lot here in Sierra Vista, Arizona. He went and was looking at the Hyundai Santa Fe's and had fallen in love with a back '06 and told the car sales man and owner that that was what he wanted. This man told my fiance that he could not have the black '06 as he was getting his first car and that he was not qualified for that and he only could get the white '01 Santa Fe, my fiance being in desperate need of a car said he would get the white car. The salesman then said great I'll get your paperwork together, Erik my fiance then told the salesman/owner that he could not today as he had $0.00 and would have to wait another two or three weeks until he was ready. The man told him that it would not be a problem and that he would put on the paper work Erik put down 1,000-1,300.00 and that Erik could just come back in and pay it before the first month. Erik was not sure about this however the salesmen said it was perfectly fine, Erik said great and that he would like to test drive the car first. He went and picked me up and we went back to the car dealership, on the way back I saw the Check Engine light was on and asked him to please find out about that. We got back and the man said that they had to service the car and that the light would then be off, so he said to us come back in three days and you can pick up the car. When we went back for the car the light was still on and the car was in the exact same spot, looking as though it never had been moved. Erik went in did the paperwork came out and that is when the man/owner said "Oh that light is still on in the car but we tuned her up and she is ready to go, so dont worry about it." Erik said OK and left, I was not happy at all about this as at this point it just was not adding up. A three months go by we make the payments to the bank but never gave the salesman anything for the down payment. So we are getting the money together while paying for everything else and the car breaks down, just stopped working for three months we had to take it to a few different mechanics before the last one we took it to said that he found that problem and that he could fix it but that there really was no point as it would be like putting a band-aid on a gunshot, it would help for about two months and the same thing would happen. Then he went on to tell us that the car we had JUST GOT FROM A CAR SALESMAN was RECALLED!!! We went straight to the A-1 Truck and Auto Sales lot and went to talk with this man/owner. He saw us coming and went straight to his office, we followed and confronted him with this information and questions as to why he said Erik didnt qualify for the other car when we had just come from seeing a loan officer who said before the car he was qualified up to 150,000.00!!!! The man said that he didnt care about our problems and we had no right to be there, at this point I left the office and called the Sheriffs office. Sheriffs showed up took our statement and then said we could leave. The car lot was closed a month later!!! Erik never heard anything from the business about it closing, nor was he hearing anything from the bank and with him getting fired from his job at the same time he was overcome with bills and so lost the car. Two and a half years later we get a letter not even from the bank but a lawyers office Barry Bursey saying he is going to sue us for the total of the car. We would not mind paying for the time we had the car however given the whole situation I feel like we should not owe the whole thing and at this point if anything! They are trying to push all the paper work through without letting us go before a judge to state our side and I think it is just to fishy and that we may have other options than to pay the total amount on a car the man knew was a non working car with a recall on it.

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State/Country relating to question: Arizona

Already Tried:
Just trying to file for a court date but the lawyer keeps getting the judge to move things forward without us being able to state our side and what had happened. We are not the sort of people who are trying to avoid our faults however we would like for both side's to be accountable for this whole thing as I know laws were broken here.