dwynne

Just get a newer CAN compatible reader. Too bad for me the ones I have don't do CAN - and I am getting an 8 I will just have to spend the bucks on the newer model when/if the time comes.

The inspection station should be able to do CAN, so unless the interface is REALLY blown you will have no trouble with the inspection.

Dennis

SHOWOFF

Ok, I'll lend a hand here.

I manage a car dealership and I'll be the first to say that no matter how hard we look over a car sometimes there is underlying damage that we miss.

We run CARFAX on every car that we trade for and the customer has to sign a disclosure of damages that binds them by law to tell us if the car was ever repaired.

In one case on a used car that we sold in 1997 the customer had been in an accident in 2002 and they took it to the body shop. During the course of the repair this body shop discovered previous repairs to the vehicle. We pulled up our documentation from the delivery over 5 years ago and the customer signed a statement that says there was no previous body damage to the car.

It sounded like we had our asses covered. We go to court. Guess who lost.... we did. The dealership is usually always guilty before we even step foot in the door of the courtroom. The customer that traded the vehicle was not found liable because "we should have necessary resources available to tell if the car was involved in a collision". We are still in the process of sueing the previous owner. We lost not only the decision but had to pay court costs and legal fees to the current owner of the car and settle with them for damages and time lost.

The bottom line is this. They truthfully may not have known that the car was wrecked. **** happens, but if you really want to get down to it, and take the dealer to court, they will lose. Trust me on this one. From several experiences.

Sigma

Read through the law that Aseras posted earlier. I know Aseras said that they violated that act, but bowhere does it say that the dealer is liable for anything.

It says that the Dealer must notify the customer
Nowhere does it say that a dealer must notify a consumer if the car was in an accident and had damage. They ONLY have to notify the customer if the damage happened while the seller owned it or if it car had a previous salvage title on it. Even if the dealer knows about the damage they are under no legal obligation to notify you of it unless it occured while they owned it.

gateCrasher

I filed a claim with Ebay's Motors Vehicle Purchase Protection program. I filed it on day 36 , but you have to file it within 35 days of auction close. Fortunately, ebay extended it for me by 2 days (Thanks ebay!). They use a 3rd party company named Auction Insurance Agency . I received a phone call from one of their reps telling me that I went past the 35 days so they wouldn't be able to help me. I explained to him that ebay gave me a 2 day extension so he requested a forwarded copy of the email. We chatted a little bit, I just kind of went over everything wrong with the car , etc. Since it is a holiday weekend, he said he would call me Tuesday morning. I'll update the post as we proceed.

/gC

Elara

Great news- hope it works out for you!

Aseras

it goes back to the deceptive trade practices I posted above that one. That law will kick in if his bodyshop finds that more than $5,000 of damage is present.

Delaerships being the "enlightened" ones are responsible to find and dislcose damage. As SHOWOFF said earlier
If a dealer is selling a car even used it must have everything disclosed. The burden to find it is on the dealer and the more damage they miss the more likely they are to be ripping people off. If they miss an obvious problem, they should have their asses and wallet handed over in court.

gateCrasher

FYI, here is the actual auction:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...tem=4551228173

Some key points that the seller says on the auction page (note the rhetoric):
"We looked the car over top to bottom and could find no flaws on the exterior or interior."
"No Known Mechanical Problems"
"No Known Accidents"
"No Known Bodywork"

When I was talking to their General Sales Manager, Scott Winker, I told him that I asked the salesguy if the car was ever wrecked, damaged, or anything of the sort and that the salesman told me "NO". He said that isn't true because he TRAINS them to tell customers the car has been in no KNOWN accidents or had no KNOWN repairs.

/gC

Sigma

A practice is only "deceptive" if the seller knew about the problem and didn't disclose it. IF this dealership knew about the problem, it was deceptive.

A dealership has no legal responsibility at all to find nor disclose damage. It does have the legal responsibility to tell you about it if you ask and they know, otherwise it's being deceptive. But that doesn't mean that they'll win a court case just because the law is on their side.

SHOWOFF didn't say that the dealer was responsible for finding damage -- he said they're always going to lose no matter what. No one likes dealerships, everyone knows they're out to make money off everyone else, and no jury is ever going to find in favor of a dealership. Law and Evidence on their side or not; they're going to lose. The law specifically states that they are under no obligation to tell you of damage unless it happened while under their ownership or if the title was not clean, no where in the law does it state they have an obligation to inspect the car and report the findings. That would be a gigantic liability for a dealership to take on as they would be forced to tear down a car and rebuild it to ensure that every single component was factory original, because if not they could be sued.

gateCrasher

Keep in mind that this dealership is a large dealer in that area. They are professionals. They are TRAINED professionals. They will be able to walk around a car and within seconds pick out repair work, compression dents, blowout lines, etc. I watched the autobody guy do it - an ex-Mazda dealership employee who now does all the dealer's body work.

I specifically asked on numerous occassions (3 times I believe) if the car was ever wrecked, ever had major repairs, had any scratches or blemishes , or just anything at all wrong with it. They told me NO. The auction listing says NO.

I strongly believe they were deceptive with the sale. Also, there's a reason for the general public distrust of auto dealers - there are dealers and sales people that flat out rip people off. Not all of them , but most of the one's that I have personally done business with have either ripped me off or tried to.

But you know, I'm sure that the guy that sold me the car is a good guy. Hell, he could be one of my close friends (personality wise) and a potential drinking buddy. He's doing his job. If a car comes to him and it is his job to sell it, previously wrecked or not, his boss is going to tell him sell it or get the hell out. Actually, come to think of it, most of my bad experiences with dealerships have been with the "finicancial guy (salesman)" and that cursed beast behind the glass in that tower room.

/gC

Sigma

And if you can prove that they should have known, then you have a better case. But, not because they're required to do an inspection, because they're not (outside of a state inspection to ensure it complies with the state safety standards for resold vehicles), but because perhaps they said they did do an inspection of a particular component which anyone familiar with the car should have known was not right when they looked at it (you'd have to have a witness corroborate that). At which point they're screwed either way -- either they were deceptive in not telling you what they found in their inspection, or they were deceptive in telling you that they did an inspection that they in fact did not.

It has to be a particular part that they explicitly said they checked. Many places list the components in their 100-point (or whatever) checklist. But if they just say they did a "100-point check" on it, that doesn't help much. They could claim that they check a whole bunch of nonsense crap not related to the damage and therefore there's no reason why they should have seen it. Most of those checks consist of nothing more than checking fluid levels, tire pressure (which counts as 4 checks), tire condition (4 more checks), and various other stupid things that add up to a seemingly-impressive inspection (at least in terms of items checked) in the end.

Very true. Besides the fact that he's just trying to make a living, an actual salesman would almost have certainly not had any knowledge of any accident. They don't keep track of the condition of all the vehicles on the lot.

wedge357

Just to add fuel to the fire here. There is an instrument dealers/appraisers use that measures the thickness of the car paint. Manual paint jobs will have different paint thickness relative to the rest of the car and that is a dead giveaway that a repair was performed. It looked like one of those ultrasonic gadget used to find wall studs that you can buy from Home Depot. It was done on a car I traded and revealed the repair done to the bumper.

dwynne

Reminds me of the guy selling stuff at the hamfest. He knocked a radio off the top shelf and it crashes to the ground. He dusts it off and puts it back on the shelf. Later someone is asking about the radio "Does that work OK?". The seller replies "It worked just fine the last time I plugged it in".

I just posted a new thread about some new 04s I found. You can get a new 04 with full warranty for not much more than you paid for this car. If there is ANY way to unwind the deal you could do better for not much more. Hopefully the fleabay guarantee will kick in - and maybe CarFax too.

Dennis

dwynne

I would think getting the prior owner's name and address would be key to proving your case - and I think you are working on it. If they knew about the damage then they gave the prior owner a low-ball figure on the trade telling them "well, we can only allow you $20k since it has been wrecked". If the dealer did not tell the prior owner they knew it was wrecked (even if they gave them nothing for the car) then they didn't "KNOW" it was wrecked.

Dennis

vortarian

Just being a devil's advocate here . . so don't flame me

As a note, if the damage wasn't "notable" the insurance company could have paid for it and it not been listed as wrecked. Usually (from my understanding), "notable" is something that would effect the safety or mechanical function of the vehicle. If the damage was from something like vandalism or a very sharpely angled collision, the frame and mechanics may not have been effected. If that happened, and the replacement was all body work (e.g. no mechanical) then it doesn't classify as "wrecked" and police / insurance / repair shop wouldn't bother reporting it as it doesn't effect the saleability of the car.

It is possible to have similar situations on vehicles that never had any real damage. For instance, a kid runs into the car on their bicycle, damaging the hood & bumper. Those get replaced (not considered a wreck - but repainted and/or replaced), and the driver hits a few pot-holes hard throwing off the alignment, damaging tie rods, tires and possibly forcing a bend in an unlikely place. All this would add up to look like a car that had been in a head on collision. Wrecked? Not really, but it certainly wasn't taken care of properly. I know 2 people who had similar situations

You'd need the previous owner's testimony to prove/disprove it. They don't need to sell the car again, so they are likely to tell you the truth. Do a title search - car titles are public records and available at the courthouse, so you should be able to find the previous owner.

vortarian

The car I traded for my RX-8 was wrecked (not that bad - and with an amazing repair job). I went to 4 dealerships when I was haggling. I told 2 of them it was wrecked and 2 of them it was not wrecked. It _never_ affected the price. My trade in was at $24K - exactly market book value. ALL the dealers came within $300 of each other with very little haggling. 1 of the dealors who priced highest (and knew it was wrecked) quoted me without even examining the car. They told me it didn't matter if the repair was done well. Hope that helps / makes it better if you find out it was wrecked.

gateCrasher

Vortarian,which state?

/gC

vortarian

CO, Denver area

Aratinga

I'm late coming into this thread, but it's worth repeating:
Do NOT trust Carfax to reveal whether a car has been damaged in an accident, despite what Carfax seems to advertise! My 8 "Roxy", as many of you already know since I've posted here about it a LOT, was badly damaged in a rear-ender accident one year ago. Nearly $15,000 worth of damage, and the insurance company refused to total it, so it was repaired. The repair took six months. I have the car back now and I'm glad to report that she runs and looks just like she did before the wreck, so the body shop did an excellent job.

I reported the accident to California DMV within 10 days, as required by law. The California Highway Patrol took a report at the accident scene. To this day, Carfax still does not show the accident anywhere on the car's report!

After I got the car back I tried to trade it in on a GTO, but the dealer could tell it had been repaired (I didn't say anything), and they wanted to add an additional $2000 to the cost of the GTO in order to do me the favor of taking my 8 in on trade. Needless to say, I still have the 8 (but the good news is my boyfriend bought the GTO. ).

Do NOT ever ever trust what anyone, dealer or private party, claims to be the "accident-free" history on a used car. Have your own mechanic and/or bodyshop guy check it out before you write the check. When/if I ever go to sell Roxy, I'll tell the buyers up front about her history, I'll offer a substantial discount on the car because if it, and we'll see what happens.

JeRKy 8 Owner

You've gotta be ****** crazy to complete a car transaction online in the first place.