Business ProfileforCoastal Auto Sales

My fiancé and I bought a vehicle from this used car lot back in 2019. When it came time to renew the vehicles registration, we received a notice that the vehicle needed to be smog-checked. During said check we were told one of the catalytic converters was aftermarket, and not registered for use in CA. They red-flagged our vehicle as being "tampered" with and denied the smog check, until this was resolved (likewise, we could not renew our registration). We called Coastal Auto Sales to report this issue. Our registration was due for renewal in, roughly, 2 months at that time. Upon explaining the issue the owner indicated he had the vehicle smog-checked before it was sold at Jim Vreeland Ford in Buellton, CA (just a few businesses over). We were told to take it to them to double-check the catalytic converter. Jim Vreeland, after several hours, called us to come pick our vehicle up. We were then told the catalytic converter, indeed, was aftermarket. When asked why they passed the vehicle for smog they simply stated they didn't understand why it was passed, but that the employee whom approved it "no longer works here anyways". They stated it was out of their hands and that I would have to work with the seller to resolve this. The seller suggested I go to a different shop to have the converter checked and retrieve its registration number, which we went to several. All of them confirmed the converter was aftermarket, was not a legal part in CA (part's reg number did not contain the correct characters for CA), and was installed UPSIDE DOWN. The owner accused us of tampering with the vehicle even though the part's manufacturing date was in 2012. After months of back and forth, involving the BBB, contacting a lawyer and so on the owner finally agreed to help us get the converter replaced. He asked us to pay for half of the work/part, but as the vehicle was well outside of its registration date we agreed. WORST EXPERIENCE EVER. Avoid this place like the plague.