Does anyone know what to do when you buy a used car 4 months ago and the dealership hands you a clean car fax report and now I find out today that it has been in 2 accidents by my insurnace co? Lawyer?? Help.....
I'd start with the dealer. They may be a victim in this as well and willing to fight with you. Of course, being a car dealer it's more likely that they are crooks, but it's worth a shot.
accidents where the damage is less than 25% of the value of the car do not have to be disclosed during title transfer, so they don't show up on carfax. maybe that's it.
Dern. Straight for the jugular. There is a chance it's an error. I guess it's too much to give them a chance to explain. Maybe they were being shady, but at least I'd be asking THEM first.
Give the dealer a chance to bring up a current Carfax report in your presence. If it shows the same thing, the dealer didn't do anything wrong.
well he was saying 'lawyer?', so I was suggesting a different route - not trying to 'go for the jugular'
and titles can be "cleaned" by going through various states. best thing is to only buy from a reputable dealership, not a mom and pop fly by night place. or that crap hole there at cleveland and 42. i wonder how they stay in business.
Seems people are always ready to blame the dealer for these types of things. The poster who brought up the 25% is spot on. In addition this is what I pulled directly from the carfax website: Do CARFAX Vehicle History Reports have information about accidents? Yes. If an accident has been reported to CARFAX it will be included in the CARFAX Vehicle History Report. CARFAX reports have information about accidents in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Canada. We guarantee we will have information about the most severe accidents, ones for which the states or provinces have issued a branded title. We also have the largest publicly accessible database of less severe accidents which we have compiled from thousands of sources. However, we do not have all accidents as many have never been reported, or may only have been reported to a source to which CARFAX does not have access. We recommend that any car be inspected by a qualified mechanic prior to purchase to make sure the vehicle is functioning properly and check for signs of unreported damage. There are a lot of small mom and pop type of body shops that just aren't going to take the time to prepare a report for carfax and since a person trading a car to a dealer isn't required to report damage of less than 25%, in most cases they won't! Same goes for auctions where dealers purchase a great deal of their inventory from. If there's no frame damage, there's no report.
