By JENNIFER MOLK
For The Outpost

Photo by Jennifer Molk
Jim and Cherry Baumgardner go over stacks of documentation he collected to prepare for the legal wrangling with General Motors. It is no surprise to Jim and Cherry Baumgardner why General Motors has fallen into bankruptcy. The Billings couple bought a dealer-driven Cadillac in 2006, and are still feeling the bumps of a deal gone bad.

Detroit, Mich.-based General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection June 1 after President Obama and his administration stepped in to rescue the faltering automaker. The bankruptcy is the fourth largest in U.S. history, with the company declaring more than $170 billion in debt.

The bankruptcy of General Motors trails just behind WorldCom, Washington Mutual and Lehman Brothers Holdings in the top U.S. bankruptcies, all with assets climbing into billions of dollars.

The decision for GM to accept government assistance will give the company billions of dollars to reorganize, restructure and regroup. The chief executive officer of the company, Fritz Henderson, said last week the move would result in a much more efficient customer- and product-focused company, but the response comes far too late for the Baumgardners, who ended up in arbitration to unload the dream car that proved to be a nightmare.

“It was a beautiful car,” Mr. Baumgardner remembered, “beige with a light brown interior. It was four-wheel-drive and had adaptive cruise. It had everything on it. It was exactly what I was looking for.”

When it was brand new, the car was driven only by the company’s top brass, Mr. Baumgardner was told, and then it was sold at auction to a dealer in the Midwest, before then being sold at another auction to a dealer in Chicago.
Mr. Baumgardner negotiated with the salesman by telephone and put together a deal on the car. After much wheeling and dealing, Mr. Baumgardner drove it off the lot for $45,000.

“When I picked it up at the dealership it had 2,977 miles and was under a full warranty,” he said.
That would prove to be the last good news the Baumgardners would be granted from their experience with this Cadillac.

Just off the lot …
Just off the lot, the trouble began.

The first time I drove the car, the service air conditioning light came on,” Mr. Baumgardner began. “And that didn’t fit very well with me. They fixed it, supposedly. I drove it back to Montana and it drove fine.”

A short time later, the check engine light came on. Mr. Baumgardner drove it to Rimrock Pontiac Cadillac (now Rimrock Auto Group) and was told the problem was a catalytic converter. The part was ordered and installed.

“I took the car and a day later the check service engine light came on,” Mr. Baumgardner said. “So I took it back over and they fixed it, or supposedly fixed it. And I took it back out and drove it around and the service engine light came back on.”

The Baumgardners had company from the south and drove the car to Yellowstone Park, where again the service engine light came on.

So I took it back to them and supposedly they fixed it again. A week or two later, we were going to Minnesota in the car and we got just past Crow Agency down by Lame Deer and the car started cutting out and the service engine light came on.”

At that point, Mr. Baumgardner called General Motors through North Star and the company ran a diagnostic on the car. The diagnosis still makes Mr. Baumgardner laugh today, albeit bitterly.

“They said there was a problem with the brakes. At that point, I decided that was enough,” he said.

GM suggested he restart the car. “The car started, and I nursed it back to Billings. I called the dealership from there that I was coming back in with it and that I didn’t care if they fixed it or not, I was going to take some other action.”

The last time Mr. Baumgardner brought the car in for service, he said it was in the shop for more than 60 days.

“They were going to replace a main wiring harness in it. So they ordered that harness, it took them forever to get it and they put the harness in. By that time I had had enough.”

At this point, Mr. Baumgardner had logged service dates on his 2005 Cadillac STS 15 times from April 1 through Aug. 25, 2006, for a total of 62 days in the shop. This doesn’t include extensive work performed before Mr. Baumgardner even bought the car - work orders that he diligently worked to attain to add to his collection of history on the car.

Bitter taste of the Lemon Law
Mr. Baumgardner began his quest to unload his troubled car through the Better Business Bureau. “I started a claim through the Lemon Law,” he said.

The Lemon Law is an informal term for Montana’s New Motor Vehicle Warranty Act. It is designed to give protection to buyers who have made repeated unsuccessful attempts to repair a vehicle.

After a comprehensive process, the vehicle may then be deemed a “lemon,” and the manufacturer is required to replace the vehicle or buy it back for the full purchase price.

Jim Baumgardner, after having gone through the entire process, was left convinced the law is written with first the manufacturer in mind.

Provisions in the Lemon Law provide for depreciation for the manufacturer, and the Lemon Law limits what you can arbitrate,” he charged. “It’s a law that was pretty much written by the manufacturers. While it supposedly is a consumer law, they certainly protect themselves.”

So comes arbitration
Mr. Baumgardner filed a claim asking for $51,000, more than his purchase price, to try to recoup his out-of-pocket expenses in acquiring the car. So began what he described as a long and frustrating process of not hearing back from General Motors as he thought he should have.

Finally, “I did get a call from GM’s representative, and he said, ‘What do you want?’” Mr. Baumgardner stated. “And I said, ‘I want rid of that lemon. I don’t want it.’ He (GM’s representative) was supposed to check and get back to me and he was supposed to review the file and I never heard. I called several times.”

In fact, Mr. Baumgardner began to document and log every step he made throughout his ordeal, every call, every conversation – he even made copies of copies, all of which are compiled in overstuffed notebooks and file folders he still goes through painstakingly today.

He never returned my calls, so I was forced to go into arbitration,” Mr. Baumgardner said. “And I was mad about that because the car qualified (as a lemon) and I shouldn’t have had to do this.”

Mr. Baumgardner’s wife, Cherry, agreed.

“It shouldn’t be so hard for the average person to just get what’s coming to him,” she said. “If Jim hadn’t had the initiative to go and do the research, and the momentum and the determination to follow through with this, the hours we spent putting that file together because we were going to arbitration … how many people would do that? Not very many people would do that, so what would they have? They would have a beautiful car that doesn’t run. And they’d have to pay a lot more money to get it fixed. They’d have to trade it in and lose money that way. It’s not right.”

Arbitration was held at the Holiday Inn where General Motors’ representative appeared by telephone.

While GM did buy Mr. Baumgardner’s car back for $42,188, taking into consideration the odometer reading of 7,800 miles, Mr. Baumgardner is left with a bitter taste over the discrepancy.

“In the arbitration, on the phone that day, she said GM would be happy to pay my out of pocket but that wasn’t the case.”

Mr. Baumgardner reluctantly signed the arbitration agreement on Oct. 19, 2006.

“I’m not happy with it but what do I do? Do I file suit for the rest of the damages or do I settle? So I decided I better get done with it,” Mr. Baumgardner said. “Under the warranty with the Cadillac they require you to make your claim under the Lemon Law before you can file suit. But I’m out of a $45,000 automobile that I paid for, and I needed to get something done. So I was forced into a position where after we went to arbitration, it was either file suit, and I almost did, or accept the arbitration amount under the Lemon Law.”

Kevin O’Brien, a spokesman for the Montana Department of Justice, said that even without knowing details of the Baumgardners’ specific case, “The bottom line is all consumers should consult with a private attorney” before signing off on anything that doesn’t sit well with the consumer.

Back behind the wheel … of another Cadillac
Today Mr. Baumgardner drives yet another new Cadillac, found on the Internet but bought from a different dealer, this time in Denver.

This was Jim’s dream car. It really was,” Cherry insisted, referring to Cadillacs in general. “He has wanted Cadillacs all his life. We’ve had Cadillacs. He’s done a lot of research on them, he’s enjoyed driving them. He’s a proud GM guy.

“I was so disappointed for Jim’s sake because he had to go through all this. Very frustrating. We didn’t buy a car to replace it for a long time because it was very raw. We were very upset about it.”

Mrs. Baumgardner said what is really interesting is to have gone through their experience and now see the difficulties that General Motors is having in the public eye.

“It’s no surprise to us because they don’t treat their customers with that much respect,” she said. “Maybe there are people that have gotten a better response than we have, but we think we’re just the average person, so if that’s how they treat the average buyer … .”

The one thing that kept the Baumgardners going through the whole process is the treatment they got from the service department at Rimrock.

“Had Rimrock Pontiac Cadillac not treated him as well as they did, I don’t think he would have had another Cadillac,” Mrs. Baumgardner said. “He knows those guys now over there and they treated him so fairly. They bent over backwards so he knows if he has a problem he can go local.”

In response, Don Volk, service director for Rimrock Auto Group said, “Our commitment to our customer and the community is that we want to be a long-term member of the community and a positive impact on the community. We do whatever we can to see that our customers are completely satisfied.”

If only he could have gotten that out of GM. Mr. Baumgardner justified his decision to buy another General Motors car by insisting it wasn’t the state of the car he purchased, rather it was the lack of adequate response by GM that led to his dissatisfaction in their product.

In the end, it wasn’t so much the car; it’s the way that I was treated by General Motors. That’s what really got to me. The lack of responses just really blows me away.”

His wife said, “You have to stand up and counted and that’s what Jim did. It’s as simple as that. And too many people just don’t feel they can or they know how or what, so it’s intimidating. You feel like this little person, and who are going to lash out against, because they have all the resources that you don’t have, and if they just ignore you long enough, many time people do just go away.”

The Baumgardners say they are enjoying their DTS. “It’s been like all my other Cadillacs,” Mr. Baumgardner said now. “It’s been a fine car.”

Jennifer Molk can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .