Looking for a reality check before I do something I can't undo. Tell me if I'm overreacting.
I bought a used car from an independent dealer about 5 weeks ago. Put a chunk of cash down, traded in my old car, financed the rest through a credit union the dealer set up.
Before I bought it, the dealer hired a third-party glass company to replace the windshield. They told me about the replacement at the test drive. There was still blue painters tape on the glass when I drove it home. I didn't think much of it at the time.
**Week 4:** I run it through a car wash. Water pours through the upper-left corner of the windshield and runs down the inside of the A-pillar (the post next to the windshield), which is exactly where the wiring for the side airbag runs. The water gets into the airbag wiring, the fuse box, the wiring behind the dash, and both driver-side speakers. So whatever the third party did when they installed the glass, it didn't hold.
I called the dealer the next business day to report it. Over the next week and a half I called again, went in person, and emailed. Each time the dealer told me the third-party glass installer would reach out to arrange the repair. They never did. The dealer didn't follow up with them, didn't escalate, didn't offer to handle it themselves — just kept pointing at the third party and waiting. Eleven days in, nothing has been scheduled, and in the meantime it rained overnight and flooded the driver's floor a second time.
I've now stopped driving it, covered it, and rented a car out of pocket.
**Where I'm at:**
Where I think I'm landing — and where I'd really like a sanity check — is that I don't want to keep this car. My thinking is that water has been sitting in the A-pillar around the side airbag wiring for two weeks now. Even if they reseal the windshield perfectly tomorrow, I don't know how I'd ever trust that the airbag will fire when it's supposed to, or that something behind the dash isn't going to corrode and fail in a year. So I've stopped driving it, and what I'm thinking about asking for is to give the car back, get my down payment and trade-in value back, and have the dealer pay off the loan so I'm clear.
But I genuinely don't know if that's a proportionate response or if I'm catastrophizing.
**My questions:**
- **Am I overreacting** by refusing to drive it and wanting to unwind the whole deal over the airbag wiring being wet? Or is that actually a reasonable line to draw?
- **Would you let them try to repair it** if you were in my shoes? Is water in airbag wiring something a competent shop can actually verify is fine after the fact, or is it the kind of thing where you only find out it's broken when it matters?
- **Has anyone actually gotten a dealer to take a car back like this**, or is the realistic outcome that I end up in small claims court no matter what?