Did Jon finally get his KIA STINGER?!

Jon is "Fascinating to talk to" as he details the long frustrating journey getting his 2023 KIA Stinger GT-Line.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can you dig it? Can you dig it? Ban you digg? Heyes,
John Justice, and I've had so many people asking for
an update regarding my car buying adventures that I decided
to do a bonus podcast because to go into this

(00:23):
on the air would be the most You're fascinating to
talk to doing that thing with my fingers of you
know the reason why we play You're fascinating to talk
to you. So I decided, well, you know what, let
me go ahead and just share the entirety of the
story because I now have the car, but it wasn't
without its controversies. So let me back up a little bit.

(00:48):
I've talked about and made a character on the show
all these years of my beloved twenty fourteen Kia Forte Coop,
a two door coop they stopped making, and I believe
twenty sixteen. I did an endorsement deal back in Tucson
in twenty fourteen for a vehicle and walked onto the

(01:10):
Kia lot. Had no idea what I was going to purchase,
just knew that I needed to buy a new car,
and I immediately saw that brand new Cobalt blue Kia
Forte Coop, and I just fell in love with it.
It looked like the front of the car looked like
the current iteration of the NASCAR race cars back in

(01:32):
twenty fourteen. I'm a huge NASCAR fan. I loved the
look of the grill, the size of the car. I
liked smaller cars, and worked out a deal with its
endorsement and have been driving the car ever since. When
I arrived here in twenty fifteen or twenty sixteen here
to Minneapolis, I had paid the car off, and I'd

(01:54):
gone over to Lupi and Kia and had intended on
because it was a lease initially, and then I decided
to keep it. Was gonna go and trade it in.
But then I just didn't like any of the newer cars,
and I didn't realize they had stopped making Kia Forte coops.
They only make the four doors now, and so I
just decided, you know what, my Kia Forte has everything

(02:15):
that I love. I love driving that car. I'll just
hang onto it. And really had intended didn't intend to
buy another car. But as you know, as the boys
got older and we began sort of handing cars down,
I got Melinda a fantastic deal through car Max of
I'm sorry. Yeah, car Max twenty twelve Kia Sorrento had

(02:35):
only had ten thousand miles on it for being a
twenty twelve. We bought it like two years ago and
Logan getting you know, her former Toyota Camery. But Kyle
needed an automobile and he's been basically driving around Melinda's Sorrento. Unfortunately,
that would leave Melinda without a car at home. So

(02:57):
we'd been wrestling with buying a new car, trying to
find and Kyle a car, and finally I just decided,
I'm like, you know what, let's go ahead and give
Kyle the Kia Forte. He ended up buying it off
of me. I used part of that for the down payment. Again,
this is why I'm telling the story via podcast and
not doing it on the air. And I decided I
was gonna go ahead and buy myself a new car,

(03:17):
and then went shopping for new cars. And I just
don't like so I don't like the current iteration of
the new vehicles that are out there. I don't want
a truck, and certainly after driving Malinda's suv, I definitely
do not want a truck or suv. I just like
lowered to the road, smaller racier cars. It's probably the
NASCAR fan in me and the stylings of the automobiles

(03:41):
that I do like, like the Toyota Camrays. To get
one with the specs that I want was probably going
to be just too expensive. I talked about this on
the show a couple of weeks back, but the cafe
standards that the Biden administration had put into place really
limited they of auto manufacturers to create unique vehicles. They

(04:03):
all ended up becoming very cookie cutter. Well, now with
Trump and office, he's removed those cafe standards, so hopefully
we can start getting some better redesigned automobiles. But the
more I began looking, the more I realized that the
car I really wanted was a Kia Stinger. I remember
seeing them on the road. You don't see very many
of them, and I at the time when I saw

(04:24):
the Stingers on the on the highway, I was like, Man,
if I were ever going to upgrade, I'm going to
go to something like that, never imagining that I would
have the opportunity to do that. So with that, I decided,
you know what, if I'm going to buy a new car,
it's probably going to be one of the you know,
a car that I'm going to keep for a long time.
I definitely want to get something that I want, and
that Kia Stinger they also don't make anymore. They stopped

(04:46):
making them in twenty twenty three. I decided to go
searching for for a used one. Through the course of
a handful of days and working with various websites, I
finally landed mostly on car Vana because they had the
best election and I found this amazing deal on a
twenty twenty three, the last model that it was made,
a twenty twenty three Kia Stinger GT Line. They come

(05:10):
in different packages, so the GT Line is a four cylinder,
a two point four Leader with a twin turbo on it.
As you move up to the GT one and the
GT two you go to a larger V six and
I didn't need that much power, and the GT line

(05:30):
gets better gas mileage. But I was able to find
a twenty twenty three GT Line all wheel drive, which
is fantastic here for Minnesota in what they call Pantherra metal.
So it's black, but it's not like a It's almost
like if you took a candy Apple red but it

(05:52):
was black. That's what it looks like. And I wasn't
necessarily looking for a black car, but in the photographs
and now that I've taken possession of the car, I
was like, that actually looks really really cool. They also
come in the back of the same color as my
key Aforte did that colbalt blue and then are red
as well, and I had considered both of those, but

(06:12):
after a conversation with Melinda, we both decided that the
blue and the red on a vehicle like this was
a little bit too ostentatious, so I decided to go
with the black. So went through the process, and I'll
say up front, this has been an incredibly frustrating process
with Carvana. I've talked about this on the air No

(06:33):
Nirvana with Carvana. I do want to mention that at
the moment, I am working with an individual named Rob
with Carvana who reached out to me yesterday after I
took possession of the vehicle and found more issues than
I had before. He has been absolutely fantastic. So Carvana
has stepped up will be helping me to remedy two

(06:58):
specific issues and has also been very apologetic over what
I've endured with all that said, I ordered the car,
And this goes back to so I ordered the car
on August fourteenth or fifteenth, with an initial scheduled delivery
date of August eighteenth. I actually think I ordered it

(07:18):
and paid for it and did all the paperwork back
on August fourteenth, and it was supposed to arrive to
me on Monday the eighteenth, between eleven am and two pm.
When I ordered the car, the only damage that was
on the vehicle was a tiny scratch on the left
hand side near an air vent close to the front door.

(07:41):
And you can and they on Carvana dot com when
you go looking at vehicles, they have all of the
different information. They do this massive, you know, multi one
hundred point inspection to make sure the cars is up
to snuff, and they show you what potential what damage
the car currently has. That way you know what you're buying.
The only damage on it was one tiny scratch, and

(08:03):
so was not a big deal. I'm okay to twenty
twenty three. It's got thirty six thousand miles on It's
gonna have a scratch on it. I'm not worried about
it looks great. So I ordered it and then come
Monday the eighteenth, I was waiting for the car to arrive.
It's past eleven o'clock, and then suddenly, out of nowhere,
I get emails and texts saying that there's been a
delay and now the car won't arrive until the twenty ninth,

(08:28):
So almost two weeks, little less than two weeks later,
about eleven days, I reached out to Carvana, and it
turns out that somehow in transit between where it came
from Kansas City and here at the Carvana hub in
I believe you, Dina. The car is an automatic. The

(08:50):
Stinger is an automatic, but you can shift it into
manual mode, and in manual mode you can then use
the paddle shifters where you would you know, I'm used to.
I grew up driving a manual. I had no intention
on using the manual paddle shifters, right. It's more of
a racing move. I might try it out, but it

(09:11):
wasn't something that I was going to be using on
a daily basis. You know, the automatic is fine. So
that was all that I was told, is that somehow
between when it left and when it got here to Minneapolis,
the paddle shifter broke. So I had asked them. I said, well, listen,
it's probably going to take a while to get fixed, obviously,
because they're pushing it out a full eleven days from

(09:31):
when I was supposed to take possession. I was already
frustrated because they waited until the window when it was
supposed to be being delivered to tell me this. And
I said, well, if it's not affecting the car in
terms of driveability, I don't have to use the manual transmission?
Can I just take possession of the vehicle? Because I
was without a car because Kyle was now driving my car,

(09:52):
and I didn't want to go and say, I know,
you paid for Dad's car and it's now your car
and you've put your stickers on it and you've changed everything,
but Dad's going to continue to drive it. I thought
that was a jerk move. I didn't want to do
that to him. So I was without a car unless
I were to go and drive Melinda's Sorrento, which is
what I ended up doing. And I said, and then

(10:13):
I can take it to a dealership wherever it needs
to be taken to to get fixed while they wait
for the park to come in. They told me that
Unfortunately they had already taken it to a dealership. I
was told that typically the a Dina Carvana Hub, they
can do the repair work in house, but unfortunately, because

(10:36):
of this unique damage, it needed to be taken to
a dealership and it was already at a dealership and
I was like, okay, fine, and then I asked them,
is there any chance the work is done early that
I can take possession of the car early, and they
said yes, we'll stay on top of it. So I
stayed on top of Carvana over the course of all
last week in this week. So last week I had

(10:56):
sent messages multiple times a day. The individual that I
spoke to so initially on Monday, named Kevin, was great.
He told me that he would follow up with me
last Friday to give me an update, and never called.
So we now rolled through last weekend, we're into this week,
and on Monday this week, the twenty fifth, I call
and speak to somebody at their corporate headquarters in Phoenix

(11:20):
and they said that they had notes the car was
currently again out of dealership and it was being repaired,
and I'm like okay. Well, as Tuesday and Wednesday rolled along,
I realized, okay, I'm not getting the car early, so
I'm just gonna go ahead and plan on getting it
on my scheduled new date, and that would be Friday,
which was yesterday. And so sure enough I got the

(11:41):
emails saying your car will be delivered tomorrow. That was Thursday,
and then on Friday morning, I got the email saying, hey,
your car is getting ready to be prepped. I got
a call from the guy who was driving the driving
the transport truck, and they came and delivered it. It actually
arrived prior to two o'clock, which was great. So the
car gets here, they prowed it off the transport and

(12:03):
the Colin who brought me the vehicle from Carvana says, yeah,
the car is still broke in and I'm like, what, Yeah,
they didn't fix the paddle shifter. Okay, I'm kind of
stunned by this, right And I'm like, all right, maybe
they needed to get the part, you know, maybe it
was going to take too long. They wanted to get
the car to me. And I expressed to him what

(12:26):
I mentioned in that was I asked to take the
car almost two weeks ago to fix it myself. He's like, yeah,
I know, I don't know why they did this. I said,
I was told I went to a dealership to get fixed,
and he says, no, I never went anywhere. So basically
the car been sitting at the lot in he Dina
for two weeks. Now. I don't know if they were
looking to order the part. I don't know if they
were having difficulty finding a place to order it, because

(12:50):
what I come to found to find out is how
difficult it is to go and replace this paddle shifter,
which I'll get to it just a moment. So I'm like, okay, fine,
that's fine. I have the car now, I'm not planning
on using the paddle shifter. You can't even really tell.
I mean, I know it's not The paddle shifter is
not on the vehicle. So there's one on the left
obviously the downshift, but the one on the right to upshift.

(13:14):
I think I got that right. I might have got
that reversed anyway, Again, I haven't used them. The paddle
shifter is missing, so there's kind of a behind the
steering wheel. You can't see it, but if you put
your hands behind the steering wheel, you can feel the
open area where the paddle shifter on the right is
supposed to go, and there's actually a little spring sticking out.
I'm planning on once I actually go to work on
the car this morning and continue to set it up

(13:35):
to make sure that it's got all the desired settings
for me. I'm probably just gonna put a small piece
of tape over that for now, just to kind of
cover it up. I don't like that spring sitting out there. Again.
This is the reason why I'm doing a special podcast
and not telling the story on the air, because at
this point in time, you that are listening might be
enjoying this, but I'm gonna imagine that the majority of

(13:56):
the audience is going to be like, why is he
talking about his car? Of podcasts? So, no big deal.
I took it out for a test drive. Drove great.
I had one interesting issue that I'll explain in a moment.
I got it on the highway on A sixty five
and kind of opened it up a bit, and when
I got up about sixty sixty five miles an hour,

(14:18):
there was this There was this cabin noise. It was
almost like a pressure cabin noise. If you've been in
a vehicle where you only open up one window, you
don't open up another one of the events and you
get sort of that pressure. It feels like pressure in
the vehicle. That was kind of happening, and it was odd.
I was like, this is weird. I did a cursory
Google search and it looked like some other owners had
had some similar problems I found. I think what the

(14:40):
problem was though, and I'll get back to that in
just a moment. So we get back from a test drive.
I'm happy, Okay, cool, we'll get the paddle shifter fixed.
The guy tells me, hey, somebody should be reaching out
to you with the next twenty four hours to go
ahead and schedule. They're going to go through this silver
Rock company. This is the company Carvana works with to
handle the insurance claims and all this stuff. I'm like great.

(15:00):
So they leave, and now the family's coming out. We're
looking at the car. I'm walking around and I notice
that and I didn't pick up on this before, and
this was my bad. I noticed that above the rear
passenger doorframe, so it's a four door, So the rear

(15:20):
right door above the doorframe in the adjacent molding before
you get to the majority of the roof, there's this
huge dent. I posted a photo of it online. I
don't know, three inches wide two inches or three inches
in length three by two scratch, Just this huge indention

(15:42):
like something got dropped right above the doorframe, which might
be might be contributing a bit to that wind noise
that I was mentioning. I don't think that's what it was.
I have to go and look today and go outside
to see if that dent above the door has impacted
that rear or that rear passenger door or not. But

(16:03):
I'm stunned. I'm like, oh my gosh, how did ANA
see this? This was not listed in the vehicle damage.
And I attempt to go and call the driver back
because he had just left like two or three minutes
ago and they're driving in a large transport single car
of transport vehicle. Couldn't get a hold of him. So
Melinna and I hop in the new car, hop in
the car, and I know where he came from. I

(16:26):
know the direction that they came to the house because
on the carv on app they have a map and
it showed in real time where the vehicle was, so
I knew when it was going to arrive. Unfortunately, it
was turned off because I planned on using it to
go and track him down. My thought was that I
was afraid because I signed all the necessary paperwork and
I should have thought about it a little bit more.

(16:46):
But I just come back from the State Fair, from
going and meeting a bunch of well you, I hope
you made it out, and I had a really great
crowd there, had a great time for the hour we
spent in the GOP booth. But I was afraid that,
oh my gosh, they you know I signed off on this.
I wonded this will be covered, and I should have
thought about it further, because clearly I didn't do this.
I just took possession of the car. I simply missed

(17:09):
seeing that upon first glance of the vehicle, and the
car is actually still under the manufacturer's warranty. So that's
good relating to the paddle shifter, but also to this damage.
There's a warranty through Carvana for I think like fourteen
days for any damage that you may have received in
receiving the car. Be that as it may, I thought, well,

(17:31):
I need to track these guys down to at least
get it on record so that I don't get posed
on this. So we tried to retrace where we believe
they would have gone, and fortunately I didn't find them,
couldn't catch up. They may have gone a different direction.
It did give Milinna and I, though, the opportunity to
go and try the car out a little more as
as we drove around, so we or I found out

(17:52):
that you can actually go into the car Vana app
and they have a way where you can upload any
damage you might have found on the vehicle after you
take possession of it. So I went ahead and I
did that. It took some photos of the damage and
loaded it up to the app, and Melinda and I
returned home. So in the process of looking over the

(18:13):
details inside the car and setting things up the way
that I wanted it, first off, that sound that I
that I told you about I heard on the highway.
Doing some digging into the different features of the vehicle
they have. Well, first off, the stereo has the volume
adjustment where the volume will raise and lower depending on

(18:34):
how much road noise the cabin of the car is experiencing.
I don't like that, but because of that feature and
this other feature where the vehicle will actually and you
can you can scale up how loud it is, but
the vehicle will actually generate engine I'm trying to figure

(19:00):
out the best way to describe it. I don't have
the manual in front of me. The car will will
artificially generate engine noises that will be played through the
entertainment system of the vehicle, so like exhaust sounds, to
make the car sound beefier. I don't know who came
up with this. I didn't know this was a thing.
I know that on some evs they will actually have

(19:23):
speakers embedded to give the car the sound of a
vehicle that way people see it approaching. But in this case,
it actually gives you the opportunity to make the engine
sound beefier than it is by artificially pumping these computer
generated sounds for the stereo. Well, it turns out that
because of the audio adjustment, you know, level adjustment listening

(19:44):
to music, and the fact that the engine noise feature
was like set it moderate, like low, moderate, you know high,
based on the settings. It turns out then on the road,
when we were speeding the car up, I was already
listening to music. The volume of the stereo was going up,
as was that internal noise of this artificial engine sound,

(20:07):
which I turned off because I think that's dumb. So
when I took the vehicle back out on the road
after fixing that particular issue, it seemed a lot better
on the on the highway than what I was experiencing before.
So in the middle of all this, I get a
call from Carvana and I end up talking to this

(20:29):
guy Rob, and Rob is who I needed. Going back
to last week, the guy has been absolutely amazing. He
has he is determined to make sure that we get
the work done on the car as quickly as possible.
He's already taken steps to make sure that I don't
have to pay anything out of pocket because the insurance company,

(20:49):
the insurance claim company they go through like a medical
insurance company, they have you know, in networking out of network,
and so if it's in network, then it doesn't cost
you anything as a vehicle owner. But if you go
to use their services to fix damage to the car,
not that's not your responsibility. If you go to a
place out of network, they're gonna charge you a couple
hundred bucks. So, because we could not find a specialty

(21:11):
auto body or auto repair shop that can actually go
and correct and fix this paddle, shifter issue, it has
to be taken to a dealership, so he actually called
me this morning. We called up LOOPI and Kia, but
unfortunately the service department is closed for the next few
days for the holiday weekend, and so they don't open
until Tuesday. So I've gone and made an appointment for Tuesday,

(21:32):
and then Rob's gonna call me when the show is done,
and we're gonna make sure that the Kiya dealership accepts
the silver Rock insurance and we can get the work
done as soon as possible. I did a Google search
online looking for replacement paddle shifters, and they're kind of
hard to come by. You have to go through Keya
Parts of dealerships or Kia Parts online stores. So they're there,

(21:55):
it's just they're kind of hard to track down. So
my guess is, while I have an appointment for Tuesday,
we'll probably get confirmation that the dealership can make the
necessary repairs, but I'll probably have to wait for them
to order the part to get it in stock. So
and then what we're waiting on is the claim hadn't

(22:16):
gone through regarding the damage. He already has it approved
to get it fixed, so next week we'll go about
finding an autobody shop that I can take it in
to get that ridiculous roof dent fixed. I mean, if
you've seen the photos online on X it was I mean,
it was bad. I was stunned and I felt stupid

(22:36):
and what I did. I felt stupid for not noticing
it at first. But I was talking to Melinda and
I'm like, well, and this was kind of an attempt
to make me feel better. I told Milinda, I said, well,
even if the transportation guys were still here, they probably
would have told me take photos uploaded to the app
and they'll get a hold of you. And that's exactly
what I did. So listen. The experience with Carvana at

(22:58):
the beginning was really really easy. All the necessary information
is online. I found the exact vehicle that I wanted
at the price that I wanted. It had never been
easier for me to purchase an automobile. I just filled
out the paperwork, signed the documents online. I ended up
going face to face and that I didn't have to

(23:19):
wait for it with a notary so that we could
notarize the some of the some of the documents that
needed to be notarized, and this was like you get
a text, click on it, immediately you get somebody. I
had it done in five minutes. So the whole process
of purchasing a car was fantastic. Receiving the car and
then getting this damage has been nothing but an absolute disaster.

(23:40):
All that said, at the moment, I'm okay, stuff happens.
I get it. I hope that I've sort of raised
a big enough stink that they'll have a better process
to this. I hope this doesn't happen often to other
people because it sucks. But Rob now with Carvana, is
doing what businesses should do, and that is take care

(24:01):
of the customer if they have a problem, and they
hadn't been doing that up until this point. I kind
of just been getting the run around and ignored, and
especially given the fact that the car had been sitting
over there and the Edna or the yeah, the Dina
carv on a hub, I just I could have had
it a week ago. But everything happens for a reason.
So the car is awesome. I'm really happy. I'm actually

(24:22):
gonna end this podcast and go outside and continue making
the necessary adjustments to all of the different various features
that it that it has. It has just enough power
that I that I want, I can turn off the
stupid auto off start. It's got the heat warmers and
all kinds of fun little things that I have to
go and tinker with. It's like buying a new TV
these days, where you have to turn off all the

(24:43):
image enhancement enhancements, so when you're going and watching Alien Romulus,
it doesn't look like you're watching a soap opera. I've
been on an alien kick lately, so I'm fascinating to
talk to. For those that were interested, and there were
a lot of people asking me about the car fair yesterday.
Like I said, I just decided to go ahead and
do a do a bonus podcast. So I hope you

(25:06):
are having a fantastic day whenever you're listening to this,
and again if it's before Labor Day, I am off
on Monday, but I will be back on Tuesday. And
now I have a whole two segments I can play
this back on the air, just kidding. All right, Hey,
thanks for listening. I appreciate it. Be sure to check
out the show as always Monday through Friday six until

(25:26):
nine am twin City's News Talk on the iHeart Radio app,
and you know what, when all is said and done,
I would probably purchase from Carvona again. Stuff happens. They're
taking care of me now, that's what matters the most,
and so you know, the adventure continues. I'm just thankful
that I've got my dream wheels. Just got to end

(25:46):
up making a few adjustments to make sure that it's
put together correctly. So all right, thanks so much for
checking out the podcast. I'll talk to you guys on Tuesday. Bye.