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The car is purchased new from authorized dealership in New York State in 2014. To sweeten the deal, the dealership gives a certificate to buyer a certificate for free oil changes for as long as you own the car. The certificate is honored every 5,000 miles or every six months which ever comes first.

In 2017 the dealership is sold to another car dealer in town, who continues to honor the certificate until late 2021, when customer goes for yet another free oil change. During the oil change the dealership finds $1,200 worth of recommended maintenance and repairs to the car that the customer declines to have performed and is then promptly informed that this is the last free oil change they will provide on this certificate.

Facts about the certificate:

  • The certificate is not signed.
  • The paper is titled and water marked with the old dealers name and logo.
  • It is referring to itself as a Certificate. The word "Coupon" is nowhere on the paper.
  • The name of the customer and VIN of the car is written in by hand using blue ink.
  • Entitles customer to free oil and filter changes for as long as you own this vehicle every six months or 5,000 miles whichever occurs first.
  • Many times but not every time, the employee accepting the car for service wrote in blue ink the date and mileage of the service occasions, as well as their initials.

In 2017 the new owner wrote on their website:

  1. Please understand, we purchased the dealership operations and not any warranties offered by old-dealers-name.
  2. For those of you who have lifetime oil change coupons, we will honor these, while trying to earn you as a customer, if the following criteria is met:
  3. You must have all other service work performed at dealers-name.
  4. Should history show that you only come to have your oil changes performed, we will perform the first oil change for free, and there after, coupon will become invalid.
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  • What exactly was sold here? Was the entire company bought or just the dealership?
    – user40839
    Jan 22, 2022 at 21:09
  • @Comic Sans Seraphim Excellent point. I don't know and as a consumer why should I need to know. It just does not seem to make sense that a non-bankrupt company can sell off all its assets let all liabilities burn.
    – IKnowNothing
    Jan 23, 2022 at 0:44
  • @IKnowNothing: As I understand it, the liabilities wouldn't "burn"; they stayed with the original owner. So my guess is that you would have had the right to go back to the original owner, if you could find them, and demand they make good on their promise, or otherwise make you whole. But five years later is probably too late.
    – Nate Eldredge
    Jan 23, 2022 at 5:50

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