My customer experience with Lonestar Truck Group/Freightliner Albuquerque by Adam Kokesh

09-18-2019 • Adam Kokesh

Lonestar Truck Group/Freightliner Albuquerque has had my RV for fifteen months. They're only responsible for a third of the delay, (the rest is from the insurance company taking their time to deny the claim and my logistics getting here) but being without my home for the last year plus has been tough and expensive compared to living in the RV. When I finally got back to do the repairs myself instead of overpaying this dishonest shop, (their Google reviews are horrendous!) I go inside and discover that because they left the engine cover to the main cab off, there has been a family of cats living here for the last six months. (There were also greasy engine parts ruining parts of the carpet.) Yes, everything fabric smells like cat piss and most corners of the floor were litter boxes. When I asked their service manager, Don Taft, (who billed me $5k for an engine diagnosis) to take responsibility for this, he got visibly angry with me in front of other staff and customers and pointed to a sign in the shop that said, "not responsible for lost or stolen items" as if that covered piles of cat turds. Then he said he would take responsibility and had someone clean the carpet yesterday, which should be replaced, not cleaned. The carpet was about a quarter of the clean up job I'm still in the middle of. When I finished picking up the turds, I had a full garbage bag that was about a third turds and two thirds my dog's bedding. Of course Don was unwilling to look at property damaged by the cats in the RV (a couple thousand dollars worth of clothes, electronics, and other household goods ruined, plus the carpet) or take responsibility for the rest of the damage caused by the cats. I'm not sure what to do in this situation. Here's what I'm considering:

1. Small claims court.

2. Write this story everywhere possible as a review online so that Don Taft will be forever known as "cat turd," and hopefully some will be spared the miserable experience of dealing with this shop.

3. Camp out front of their shop until my RV is fully repaired with a sign that says, "DISHONEST BUSINESS, SHOP ELSEWHERE, ASK ME WHY."

4. Go into Don Taft's office, and dump the giant bag of cat turds on his desk since he said it was "no big deal" that my RV was full of cat turds.

Please help me decide a course of action in the comments! If you want more information, you can call Don Taft at 505-833-4503, or just let him know what a wonderful person he is. Thanks for your help!

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The "NO FORCE ONE" rescue mission is underway right now in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

If you're in or near Albuquerque, we'd love for you to say hi, see "NO FORCE ONE," and meet me and the team! (You can reply to this email to let me know you're coming, or just stop by.)

We're at the end of the cul de sac past:

Lonestar Truck Group

12901 Frontage Rd SW

Albuquerque, NM 87121

And we'll be here working on the campaign RV all day Wednesday and Thursday, (and hopefully not longer!) so make sure to come by if you can! And we can always use some extra hands. We're not just replacing the engine, we're also cleaning out and fixing some of the interior after the shop left it open for a family of cats to "live" in for six months.

If you're nowhere near Albuquerque, you can still show your support for this campaign by helping us raise the funds we need to finish these critical repairs on our campaign RV.