Game show winner claims new car a wreck

LOS ANGELES (Reuters Life!) - The price was all wrong for one contestant on "The Price Is Right" who claims the TV game show and its authorized auto dealership tried to pass off a rehabilitated wreck as a new car she won.

Donna Tillman said she won the 2004 Pontiac GTO Coupe during her June 28, 2004, appearance on the game show. But she was told after she paid the taxes and license fees that the vehicle that appeared on the stage had mechanical problems, according to a lawsuit filed on Thursday in Los Angeles.

When the car was delivered about eight weeks later, it was not the model that had been displayed on the show and it had more miles on the odometer than the car she had been promised.

Several months later when Tillman took her prize for a service at a dealership in her hometown of Puyallup, Washington, she learned the car had major damage to its frame that had been repaired and concealed, the lawsuit said.

A spokeswoman for "The Price Is Right" had no immediate comment. No one from the Pontiac dealership could be reached for comment.

"The Price is Right," which airs on the CBS television network, is one of the longest-running game shows on U.S. television. Contestants win prizes by guessing the cost of consumer goods.