Ok, I bought a 2000 Explorer XLT used from a dealer. A bit after I had it I noticed over spray on the door and thought nothing of it. Until lately I've realized my vehicle is very hard to keep in alignment. Also when we pulled the door panel off to replace the mirror you can tell its not the correct door. We had a friend who owns his own body shop tell us its been wrecked for sure. We're going to have him take a good look over the entire vehicle.
I looked up laws here:
http://www.yourlemonlawrights.com/indiana/automobile-fraud.html
This is straight from the article It is the responsibility of the selling dealer to inform you before purchase if the car has, to their knowledge, a “salvage title” or has been involved in an accident.
FYI we bought the vehicle in Indiana.
Yet the dealer has not disclosed anything to us. My question is what should be our plan of action? Any help would really be appreciated.
I'd run a CarFax on it to make sure, then bring it to the dealer.
Desert Tuners
“When you come across a big kettle of crazy, it’s best not to stir it.”
Yeah, no one wants a wrecked car, especially at a not wrecked price! Run the VIN and get your buddy to write something up on it too. You can never have too much evidence! Good luck with that mess, man. I hope you get your money back.
Team GREEN
Suspension Division - "Handling Before Horsepower"
Making the turns since 1999
1998 EK Civic Hatch - Yes, it's a Honda.
Quote:
It is the responsibility of the selling dealer to inform you before purchase if the car has, to their knowledge
Thats the kicker. Its extremely difficult for you to prove that the dealer had prior knowledge of the vehicle being in an accident. If the vehicle was not required to be inspected, and does not show on a history report, then the dealer can't be held at fault.
4cyltuner.com - Information Source For 4 Cylinder Tuners
Buy stuff from CarCustoms Ebay! Won't be disappointed!
well make sure you drive the hell out of it before you return it.
Which should be a good lesson to everyone about inspecting vehicles completely before purchase. You're usually better off having it inspected professionally, since buying a vehicle can be emotional, and you can let your feelings for the vehicle skew your inspection. An independant professional who doesn't care whether you buy it or not will be able to spot things you would overlook initially.
As mentioned above, you'll most likely have a hard time proving the dealer had "prior knowledge", even if they did.
Does the vehicle have a salvage title? You'd know if it does, because it would have the word "Salvage" on it. No way to get around that. Once a car has been totalled it becomes salvage. To be re-titled (and then have a salvage title) after being rebuilt, it needs to be inspected to ensure the repairs were adequate.
If it's not a salvage title, then you may want to consult an attorney. Laws vary state to state, but typically the law you quoted above doesn't apply to "fender-bender" type accidents that don't result in the vehicle being salvaged. For example - if I get into a minor accident and repair a fender or door myself and repaint it, then sell the car, I am not required to disclose that. If I trade it in, I don't have to tell the dealer, who then wouldn't know about it, so they couldn't disclose it to you.
-Ferrite
CarFax ForTheWin
I was happy when I heard my car ran 10s. Then I found out that was 0-60.
not all the crashed are on the vin# we had a truck and it was a target for other cars it was hit 5 times in all the damage was over $1000. we would just order the parts put them on and have a buddy that paints cars spray it. theres 1 of the hits on the vin # because i was siting at a red light and a girl didnt feel like hiting the brakes and hit me and over 5400 in damage to my truck. thats the only one on the vin#. so it might have been hit and i could be on the vin never hurts to check.
Shifted wrote:Quote:
It is the responsibility of the selling dealer to inform you before purchase if the car has, to their knowledge
Thats the kicker. Its extremely difficult for you to prove that the dealer had prior knowledge of the vehicle being in an accident. If the vehicle was not required to be inspected, and does not show on a history report, then the dealer can't be held at fault.
When my g/f was looking at used Hondas, we ran across a nice Civic at a Ford dealer. She was asking the salesman questions, I was looking for body work. The driver door had a slight mismatch below the door guard, and was only across ¼ of the door. I pointed it out to the salesman, and he played dumb. He ran a clean Carfax also. Still played dumb. Even tried to tell me that it was simply not washed correctly, missing a layer of wax, or that it might have came from the factory that way. Then I pointed out the paint overspray and the primer overspray. Whatever. Like out of all the people that inspected this trade-in at this Ford dealer, that I was the only one to notice this
^^^You obviously have never worked at a dealership.
Cars are only as good as the Used Car Manager. That is FACT! If he's a crook, you're rollin the dice. He's the one that give the OK's on all the repairs and whatnot. If he doesn't want to pay for a bad headgasket repair, but still wants to sell the car, he tells the tech to degrease the engine and change out the coolant. Speaking from experiance here.
Team GREEN
Suspension Division - "Handling Before Horsepower"
Making the turns since 1999
1998 EK Civic Hatch - Yes, it's a Honda.
RaiLS wrote:^^^You obviously have never worked at a dealership.
Cars are only as good as the Used Car Manager. That is FACT! If he's a crook, you're rollin the dice. He's the one that give the OK's on all the repairs and whatnot. If he doesn't want to pay for a bad headgasket repair, but still wants to sell the car, he tells the tech to degrease the engine and change out the coolant. Speaking from experiance here.
Or the Owner
. I knew of this one place down in B.G. that put two halves of a Catera together to make one, I'll never buy a car from any dealership he owns.
Carfax doesn't bring everything up. We recently found out that my wifes new to us Saturn SL1 was completely repainted and our Credit Union did a carfax check which didn't bring anything up that would explain why it was totally repainted.
spikej wrote:Carfax doesn't bring everything up. We recently found out that my wifes new to us Saturn SL1 was completely repainted and our Credit Union did a carfax check which didn't bring anything up that would explain why it was totally repainted.
Well there is no way for CarFax to know if it's never reported. Maybe the person that had it repained payed out of pocket. CarFax only knows what it is told.
Rob
Sold 2/2/05
Shifted wrote:Quote:
It is the responsibility of the selling dealer to inform you before purchase if the car has, to their knowledge
Thats the kicker. Its extremely difficult for you to prove that the dealer had prior knowledge of the vehicle being in an accident. If the vehicle was not required to be inspected, and does not show on a history report, then the dealer can't be held at fault.
x2 I am kind of going through the same thing w/ the house but I can prove they knew about it. If you had some friends at the dealer who said they saw it in back wrecked then you may be ok.
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