McCAR homes BRIARCREST (2010, new house, purchase)

[Shane51]

I am probably the only person on this board who is completely disgusted with their move to NC but for good reason. My wife and 2 boys (7 and 3) moved down to the Weddington area about 10 months ago. We heard the best reviews about the Wesley Oaks subdivision and once we toured the Centex homes we thought we struck gold. But we couldn't be more wrong.

Here are just some of the things that happened:
4 months after our close we received our first water bill which was an INCREDIBLE $2200 for 3 months!!! You think this can't be true but it turns out that we had an unknown plumbing problem. Water was pouring directly into the pvc returns which was wasting thousands of gallans of water. We refused to pay the bill and our water was shut off followed by our other utilities (believe it or not they all work together down there and back each other up). We obviously had to give in at that point and we are currently seeking legal counsel on the whole issue.

If it ended there it wouldn't even had been so bad. A few months later we had pest control come to our house for an initial preventative visit. I'm not sure if anyone is familiar with centex homes but they have a dedicated line built into the walls with a tap outside that hooks up to a pesticide machine. DO NOT USE THIS DEVICE!!! I assume when they ran the line they pulled it around corners which cut gaping holes in it. Long story short the pestides filled the house to the point where my wife and 2 children became violently ill. I was away on business and you could imagine my state of panic when I heard of this.

But the icing on the cake came just a few months ago when I we used our gas heat for the first time (besides testing it during our walk thrus). The contractor neglected to install the regulator which had the gas pumping into the house at about 10x the rate it is supposed to. Gas is pumped by the utility at a much higher rate and then regulated by your internal controls. Since we did not have this regulator, gas was filling our house faster than it could burn it for heat. Once again, long story short - thank god for our carbon monoxide detectors - it took some time but the gases coming from the attic leaked to the 2nd floor - imagine I was a smoker?

I am now living in an apartment with most of my possessions in storage. Centex took weeks to get someone to my house to inspect the problems (sure their office staff will come and try to comfort you but they aren't the professionals we needed to fix or investigate the problems). I am so fed up that i rather keep my apartment for the time being and sell my house after 1 year has past due to my mortgage requirments. Be warned - everything isn't so great in Charlotte as most people think.

[lovesMountains]

Originally Posted by Shane51

I am probably the only person on this board who is completely disgusted with their move to NC but for good reason. My wife and 2 boys (7 and 3) moved down to the Weddington area about 10 months ago. We heard the best reviews about the Wesley Oaks subdivision and once we toured the Centex homes we thought we struck gold. But we couldn't be more wrong.

Here are just some of the things that happened:
4 months after our close we received our first water bill which was an INCREDIBLE $2200 for 3 months!!! You think this can't be true but it turns out that we had an unknown plumbing problem. Water was pouring directly into the pvc returns which was wasting thousands of gallans of water. We refused to pay the bill and our water was shut off followed by our other utilities (believe it or not they all work together down there and back each other up). We obviously had to give in at that point and we are currently seeking legal counsel on the whole issue.

If it ended there it wouldn't even had been so bad. A few months later we had pest control come to our house for an initial preventative visit. I'm not sure if anyone is familiar with centex homes but they have a dedicated line built into the walls with a tap outside that hooks up to a pesticide machine. DO NOT USE THIS DEVICE!!! I assume when they ran the line they pulled it around corners which cut gaping holes in it. Long story short the pestides filled the house to the point where my wife and 2 children became violently ill. I was away on business and you could imagine my state of panic when I heard of this.

But the icing on the cake came just a few months ago when I we used our gas heat for the first time (besides testing it during our walk thrus). The contractor neglected to install the regulator which had the gas pumping into the house at about 10x the rate it is supposed to. Gas is pumped by the utility at a much higher rate and then regulated by your internal controls. Since we did not have this regulator, gas was filling our house faster than it could burn it for heat. Once again, long story short - thank god for our carbon monoxide detectors - it took some time but the gases coming from the attic leaked to the 2nd floor - imagine I was a smoker?

I am now living in an apartment with most of my possessions in storage. Centex took weeks to get someone to my house to inspect the problems (sure their office staff will come and try to comfort you but they aren't the professionals we needed to fix or investigate the problems). I am so fed up that i rather keep my apartment for the time being and sell my house after 1 year has past due to my mortgage requirments. Be warned - everything isn't so great in Charlotte as most people think.

Shane, how awful for you and your family. I hope you have a good lawyer. Sounds like the particular construction crew on your house was clueless, but Centex does bear ultimate responsibility for that for sure. However, you can hardly blame the whole city of Charlotte for your misfortune. Your house isn't even IN Charlotte! There are many great things about Charlotte and its metro region, but no, it is not paradise or heavan on earth. You have had some inexcusable, nightmarish things happen to you and I am really so sorry, but it really isn't the city's fault.

[stew]

Shane,

being from Charlotte I find humor in folks moving here and then bashing the place. You know if Charlotte is really that bad you can always go back. Charlotte is getting a little crowded anyway.

[nuak]

Mccar homes will honor the warrenty only to repairs that dont cost much. If there is any major defect that requires expensive repairs, Mccar homes will either deny there is a problem, ignore you, blame it on you, or after agonizing delays and reports, agree to unsatisfactory and incomplete repairs that do not solve the problem at all.
You should only buy from a builder who will fix any expensive problems.
Mccar homes uses the cheapest quality materials and very incompetent cheap subcontractors. Believe me there are going to be major faults in the quality of materials and workmanship with Mccar homes.
Also beware, if they ever tell you that they will fix things after closing. Once the closing is done, you will be waiting for months for them to show up, and for any expensive faults they will try any trick in the book to make excuses.
When you buy an expensive home, it is the warrenty back-up from the builder that allows you to sleep without anxiety at night, in case there is a major fault in the house. With Mccar home that warrenty means nothing if the fault is going to be a major one, then you are on your own. They will make you go round in circles to avoid the expense to themselves. They will however fulfill the warrenty "ultimately" for repairs that do not cost much.
Please talk to as many people in the subdivision who recently bought a Mccar home before you buy one.

[tanyat27]

Originally Posted by Shane51

I am probably the only person on this board who is completely disgusted with their move to NC but for good reason. My wife and 2 boys (7 and 3) moved down to the Weddington area about 10 months ago. We heard the best reviews about the Wesley Oaks subdivision and once we toured the Centex homes we thought we struck gold. But we couldn't be more wrong.

Here are just some of the things that happened:
4 months after our close we received our first water bill which was an INCREDIBLE $2200 for 3 months!!! You think this can't be true but it turns out that we had an unknown plumbing problem. Water was pouring directly into the pvc returns which was wasting thousands of gallans of water. We refused to pay the bill and our water was shut off followed by our other utilities (believe it or not they all work together down there and back each other up). We obviously had to give in at that point and we are currently seeking legal counsel on the whole issue.

If it ended there it wouldn't even had been so bad. A few months later we had pest control come to our house for an initial preventative visit. I'm not sure if anyone is familiar with centex homes but they have a dedicated line built into the walls with a tap outside that hooks up to a pesticide machine. DO NOT USE THIS DEVICE!!! I assume when they ran the line they pulled it around corners which cut gaping holes in it. Long story short the pestides filled the house to the point where my wife and 2 children became violently ill. I was away on business and you could imagine my state of panic when I heard of this.

But the icing on the cake came just a few months ago when I we used our gas heat for the first time (besides testing it during our walk thrus). The contractor neglected to install the regulator which had the gas pumping into the house at about 10x the rate it is supposed to. Gas is pumped by the utility at a much higher rate and then regulated by your internal controls. Since we did not have this regulator, gas was filling our house faster than it could burn it for heat. Once again, long story short - thank god for our carbon monoxide detectors - it took some time but the gases coming from the attic leaked to the 2nd floor - imagine I was a smoker?

I am now living in an apartment with most of my possessions in storage. Centex took weeks to get someone to my house to inspect the problems (sure their office staff will come and try to comfort you but they aren't the professionals we needed to fix or investigate the problems). I am so fed up that i rather keep my apartment for the time being and sell my house after 1 year has past due to my mortgage requirments. Be warned - everything isn't so great in Charlotte as most people think.

I'm sorry to hear your problems. I have them to. I live in Wesley Oaks. Mine are structural and code voilations. I'm fed up with them.

[drew0020]

Originally Posted by nuak

Mccar homes will honor the warrenty only to repairs that dont cost much. If there is any major defect that requires expensive repairs, Mccar homes will either deny there is a problem, ignore you, blame it on you, or after agonizing delays and reports, agree to unsatisfactory and incomplete repairs that do not solve the problem at all.
You should only buy from a builder who will fix any expensive problems.
Mccar homes uses the cheapest quality materials and very incompetent cheap subcontractors. Believe me there are going to be major faults in the quality of materials and workmanship with Mccar homes.
Also beware, if they ever tell you that they will fix things after closing. Once the closing is done, you will be waiting for months for them to show up, and for any expensive faults they will try any trick in the book to make excuses.
When you buy an expensive home, it is the warrenty back-up from the builder that allows you to sleep without anxiety at night, in case there is a major fault in the house. With Mccar home that warrenty means nothing if the fault is going to be a major one, then you are on your own. They will make you go round in circles to avoid the expense to themselves. They will however fulfill the warrenty "ultimately" for repairs that do not cost much.
Please talk to as many people in the subdivision who recently bought a Mccar home before you buy one.

I recently moved into a McCar home and I have to say I have been extremely impressed with this home. This is my 4th new home purchase and this home in Moss Creek also happens to be the cheapest home by 200k that I have purchased.

The initial inspection was handled wonderfully. The service manager pointed out many items for the punch list that I would not even deem worthy. 95% of these items were fixed prior to closing. On the day of closing the service people were at my home fixing the remaining items. Since I moved in I noticed 4 additional problems. 2 were fixed within 2 days and there are only 2 additional items (paint and stove handle needs to be replaced).

I will provide an update in the next 6 months to see how the home is holding up, but I cannot complain about the service to date. Very impressed!!

[mjh]

Originally Posted by drew0020

I recently moved into a McCar home and I have to say I have been extremely impressed with this home.

Your experience is closer to the experience that I had with McCar. Although, my experience is not as rosey as yours (floor problems) I would say that its closer than all of the negative reviews. My wife and I are very pleased with our house and satisfied with McCar. They have tried absolutely everything that they can to make us happy. They haven't always been successful, but it's not for a lack of effort. And except for the floors, we've been satisified with everything else that they've had to come in and fix.

And for the guy who says that McCar will only come in and do inexpensive fixes, I would disagree with that. So far they have redone our floor 3 times, they repoured our driveway, and they gave us a convection double oven. I know that the driveway cost $1800 and the oven cost $1600. They could have easily spent over $5000 on that work alone. (I suspect that they extracted that cost from the subcontractors.) In addition, they've done tons of little things, too.

So overall, I'm very satisfied with McCar.

[xpect2win]

Originally Posted by nuak

Mccar homes will honor the warrenty only to repairs that dont cost much. If there is any major defect that requires expensive repairs, Mccar homes will either deny there is a problem, ignore you, blame it on you, or after agonizing delays and reports, agree to unsatisfactory and incomplete repairs that do not solve the problem at all.
You should only buy from a builder who will fix any expensive problems.
Mccar homes uses the cheapest quality materials and very incompetent cheap subcontractors. Believe me there are going to be major faults in the quality of materials and workmanship with Mccar homes.
Also beware, if they ever tell you that they will fix things after closing. Once the closing is done, you will be waiting for months for them to show up, and for any expensive faults they will try any trick in the book to make excuses.
When you buy an expensive home, it is the warrenty back-up from the builder that allows you to sleep without anxiety at night, in case there is a major fault in the house. With Mccar home that warrenty means nothing if the fault is going to be a major one, then you are on your own. They will make you go round in circles to avoid the expense to themselves. They will however fulfill the warrenty "ultimately" for repairs that do not cost much.
Please talk to as many people in the subdivision who recently bought a Mccar home before you buy one.

You are exactly right. We have a structural issue that we have been fighting to get repaired for 15 months!!!!!! All we have gotten is the runaround because it is a major issue. One big problem with McCar is that they have a major problem with turnover. Their employees get so disgusted with the low quality product and disgruntled homebuyers that they quit. Each time you find someone that will try to get your issue resolved, they quit and then you are back to square one.

[xpect2win]

Originally Posted by Shane51

I am probably the only person on this board who is completely disgusted with their move to NC but for good reason. My wife and 2 boys (7 and 3) moved down to the Weddington area about 10 months ago. We heard the best reviews about the Wesley Oaks subdivision and once we toured the Centex homes we thought we struck gold. But we couldn't be more wrong.

Here are just some of the things that happened:
4 months after our close we received our first water bill which was an INCREDIBLE $2200 for 3 months!!! You think this can't be true but it turns out that we had an unknown plumbing problem. Water was pouring directly into the pvc returns which was wasting thousands of gallans of water. We refused to pay the bill and our water was shut off followed by our other utilities (believe it or not they all work together down there and back each other up). We obviously had to give in at that point and we are currently seeking legal counsel on the whole issue.

If it ended there it wouldn't even had been so bad. A few months later we had pest control come to our house for an initial preventative visit. I'm not sure if anyone is familiar with centex homes but they have a dedicated line built into the walls with a tap outside that hooks up to a pesticide machine. DO NOT USE THIS DEVICE!!! I assume when they ran the line they pulled it around corners which cut gaping holes in it. Long story short the pestides filled the house to the point where my wife and 2 children became violently ill. I was away on business and you could imagine my state of panic when I heard of this.

But the icing on the cake came just a few months ago when I we used our gas heat for the first time (besides testing it during our walk thrus). The contractor neglected to install the regulator which had the gas pumping into the house at about 10x the rate it is supposed to. Gas is pumped by the utility at a much higher rate and then regulated by your internal controls. Since we did not have this regulator, gas was filling our house faster than it could burn it for heat. Once again, long story short - thank god for our carbon monoxide detectors - it took some time but the gases coming from the attic leaked to the 2nd floor - imagine I was a smoker?

I am now living in an apartment with most of my possessions in storage. Centex took weeks to get someone to my house to inspect the problems (sure their office staff will come and try to comfort you but they aren't the professionals we needed to fix or investigate the problems). I am so fed up that i rather keep my apartment for the time being and sell my house after 1 year has past due to my mortgage requirments. Be warned - everything isn't so great in Charlotte as most people think.

I understand you frustration. We moved from the Washington DC area and are use to a much higher standard. What we've noticed about NC is that the people are wonderful and the state is beautiful. We couldn't have found a better place for quality of life. However, we've never seen such overall incompetence and low standards regarding any type of business dealings. We spend too much time trying to do everone's job. We've had problems with just about every business transaction necessary to transition from DC to NC. We are very frustrated that we have to follow behind adults to make them do what they are suppose to do. Maybe in the south people are just too laid back. I think in order to lower our level of frustration maybe we need to lower our expectations. Also, make sure you get everything in writing from everyone you deal with.

[ncsenator]

Originally Posted by xpect2win

I understand you frustration. We moved from the Washington DC area and are use to a much higher standard. What we've noticed about NC is that the people are wonderful and the state is beautiful. We couldn't have found a better place for quality of life. However, we've never seen such overall incompetence and low standards regarding any type of business dealings. We spend too much time trying to do everone's job. We've had problems with just about every business transaction necessary to transition from DC to NC. We are very frustrated that we have to follow behind adults to make them do what they are suppose to do. Maybe in the south people are just too laid back. I think in order to lower our level of frustration maybe we need to lower our expectations. Also, make sure you get everything in writing from everyone you deal with.

Two words: Angie's List. There's no need to lower your expectations. It's by far the best money I spend every year.