Can I do any legal actions about this?

**xinthenight** · 08-28-2007, 04:33 PM

Well, I bought my camaro about half a year ago. I only got to drive it a few times because I traveled all around the east coast working about 75 hours a week up until a month ago when I finally got to enjoy the car(I drove a gas saver for work, I'd be traveling 1,000+ miles on some days to get to a location)

Anyways, I noticed a few things wrong with the car on the driver door. It was the inside, with the window motor. I only noticed it after I had bought it(still making payments). Today at my autobody shop, someone was checking out the car that was in my class during lunch and noticed that it has been re-painted. They did a bad tape job on the rubber between the door and the window, and close to the power mirror it was actually pealing a little and could see the same color layer under it. So we inspected more, and noticed that up near the headlights on the same side it's been re-painted with bad taping. I never noticed this stuff before but being in a class now where I'm fixing crashed cars and such it's all comming to me.

So after luch was over and he painted a fender we worked on I asked him to come look at it. He checked out the paint, where it was re-painted, and the inside door under the panel where it has OBVIOUSLY been worked on a lot(I used to just think it was from working on the window motor) and said that it has in fact been in a collision at some time.

I checked carfax with it a few months ago and it was a clean title, but weirdly it only said the car had around 85k miles as the last update, where I bought it with 150k.

So is there any legal actions I can do about this? I bought it from a shop, and from the best of my memory it was owned by some women as the only driver before that(but of course...it could have actually been her sons...and yeah...if I knew it was a girls car before I bought it I'd have expected it to have been wrecked a few times

)

**JonB** · 08-28-2007, 04:39 PM

I think the only chace you may have is if you could prove the shop you bought it from knew it was in an accident and they with held that information. It would be a long shot since you have had the car a year and a half.

**xinthenight** · 08-28-2007, 06:22 PM

Originally Posted by JonB

I think the only chace you may have is if you could prove the shop you bought it from knew it was in an accident and they with held that information. It would be a long shot since you have had the car a year and a half.

No, only about half a year. If I said a year and a half I made a typo.

**B34M3R** · 08-30-2007, 06:18 AM

Unfortunately, I doubt you can do anything. Depending on the state, they aren't even required to tell you about it unless you specificly ask them. If you did ask, and they lied to you, then you might have something to go off of. But still, even best case it would be he said she said stuff.

**bigrondownhiller** · 08-30-2007, 12:57 PM

carfax will only report an accident if the owner went through insurance with a claim or if it was repaired at a dealer. If it was hit and the owner paid out of their own pocket, then nothing was ever reported to carfax.

**4get gto** · 08-31-2007, 04:32 PM

Should of looked at it harder yourself.......

You're

**SeVeReDiStOrTiOn** · 09-01-2007, 06:20 AM

There's not much you can do...they'll just deny everything. You can always report them to the BBB and write a letter to them describing what happened...doubt anything will come of it though. If the car drives and rides good just forget about it...most used cars have been wrecked anyway.

**Sarge** · 09-01-2007, 06:24 AM

You can sue anybody for anything. Take your shot in court.

**Twistingreality** · 09-01-2007, 03:04 PM

Take them to court. Or you could park the car next to the dealership with big signs on it saying that they sold you a wrecked car.

**CHD** · 09-03-2007, 01:03 PM

You may be protected by state law, depending on where you live, but that is doubtful. Thus, your only recourse would most likely be litigation. You could prevail only if you proved to the court that they lied to you about the car's past. Of course, they themselves would have to have known that the car was wrecked to lie to you.

If you win in court, then there are damages to consider. The damages awarded might be the difference in the value of the car wrecked as opposed to unwrecked. Some states might have statutes with penalty clauses that would enhance your damages. It is unlikely that a court would simply make them buy back the car.

Aw, hell, forget the legal shit - you're hosed.