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June 2022 Babies 🇺🇸

Mold found in dashboard of car

Long read but would love advice 🙏🏼

We purchased a BRAND NEW GMC Yukon XL in Dec 2021 from a GMC dealership. The first day we brought the vehicle home in broke down in the road when my husband was shuffling cars in the driveway. We had to call a tow truck and it ended up being a transmission board issue.

About 6 months into owning the car we started smelling a musty smell every time we’d turn the AC on. We have taken this car into multiple GMC dealerships for a total of probably 8 times to have the issue addressed. Each time it seemed like they put a bandaid on it bc the smell would go away for 3-4 weeks then come right back.

Each time dealing with the inconvenience of a rental car (99% of the time a Malibu or small sedan that I can fit all theee of my kids in so I have to squish them all into my husbands truck and he drives the rental) and my husband taking time off of work to drop off my car/rental car and pick up. Not to mention paying $700+/month to have the car being worked on for a week or two at a time that many times.

We also had to take it in about two months ago bc it literally shuddered hard and shut off in the middle of a very busy 6 lane road RIGHT as I was about to get onto the highway. By the grace of god I was able to barely coast on fumes into a parking lot and we narrowly missed getting read ended and causing a pile up. Scared me and two of my kids to pieces and we had to call tow truck and get an uber home.

About two weeks ago while waiting for the part for them to attempt to fix the mildew/mold smell AGAIN, the vehicle started making a grinding noise whenever we would turn the wheel in the mornings when first driving the car then progressed to doing it every time we turned after about a week.

SO we took it in AGAIN last Monday and the service technician sent me this photo of all of this mold they found this morning around the evaporator coil which is RIGHT BEHIND THE DASHBOARD. My sweet babies and myself have been breathing in MOLD (having it blasted in our faces daily rather since we live in a southern state) for THREE YEARS.

They’ve told us that they’ve taken the dash off at least once before (a different dealership, this is the first time this current one has tried to fix the issue). Wouldn’t they have certainly seen all this mold if that were the case??????

Two of my three small children have diagnosed asthma. Preventive daily steroid inhalers, the whole nine yards. For the last two years during school year when we’ve been in my car for approx 1.5 hours a DAY (long commute to and from older kids school) they have been continuously sick requiring so so many urgent care visits, oral steroids, chest X-rays, etc.

We recently moved right before school started this year and now only have a 7 minute commute one way and they have both barely been sick at all.

I was also pregnant with my daughter (one of the kids with asthma) for 6-7 months while driving it and she was born with severe respiratory issues that they were surprised she had at her gestation of 36w5d.

They said they would replace and deodorize the carpet and we can pick up tomorrow. I say NO WAY am I putting my kids in that car again. I don’t even know if they’ve actually found the source or not and can’t mold release spores all over the car when AC is constantly blowing out air??????

The technician advised my husband to come in and take photos of all of the mold before they cleaned it up so we got 19 photos of all of the mold inside the dashboard.

My mom and best friend say I should contact an attorney. My husband says we should just demand a new car at the same payment and interest rate as our last since we are having to buy new at no fault of our own. The car only has 32k miles on it and I’m a neat freak so it’s in excellent shape!! Help!!! What would you do???

Also wondering what TYPE of attorney if anyone thinks that route is justified??