RUDE AWAKENING- Dealership sold me wrecked truck with clean title?

Yeah. Considering I paid $31k for my brand new 2015 Double Cab SR5 4x4 the OP paid an awful lot for a repaired used pickup. And I know folks have gotten similar trucks to mine at better prices.

 

That's including about $5 grand of stealership add-ons. I could have done without the add-ons and got a new truck. I picked one out in my price range, they ran the credit checks and approved with my down payment. After all the paper work was printed out with extra services and i had signed the stack they told me the total after an hour. they ran everything through the specialist that was from my bank they had on site. Shrugged it off and left satisifed because i felt completely covered. we'll see if that pays off.

 

Yeah... don't sign crap until you know what the deal is. If you don't know how much you're paying you shouldn't agree to anything. Your dealer sounds hinky.

 

Dang that sucks. I was pissed when I found a dirty cabin air filter shortly after buying a CPO 4runner. Your situation is much worse!

 

The multi-point inspection is a gorram joke.

Two trucks back, I asked for the inspection checklist and walked out onto the lot with it. I took 15 minutes and came back with over 20 items that were circled as 'demonstrably false, out on the lot, RIGHT GODDAMNED NOW' and made them fix every single item on the checklist to match before I went a single step further

 

Here's a pic of my 2010 that a flatbed truck broadsided. The frame wasn't bent, but I was hit hard enough that the rear axle was bent and replaced. I traded it in after it was fully repaired. I saw it a few years later, recognized it because of the mods I had done to it, and went to talk to the guy. During the conversation I asked, almost jokingly, if the dealer had told him about the accident. Nope, the dealer never mentioned a thing to the guy.

 

I would get a second opinion on the frame damage, preferrably at another Toyota dealer. Check the fine print of the Toyota CPO program to see what is covered. The TCUV web site says "major structural damage" would make the vehicle ineligible for certification (http://www.toyotacertified.com/faq.html). Presumably that means a dented door, when repaired properly, is passable. Did the dealer give you any paperwork that says the vehicle is accident-free?

A dealer's used vehicle appraisers are the best in the business at finding flaws to lower the value of trade-ins. Repainted panels would be spotted right away.

 

Pre certified doesn't require that the vehicle hasn't been in any accidents. This is from Toyotas Web site on certified vehicles.

Carfax Vehicle History Report (VHR) [4]

• Every TCUV comes with a free CARFAX VHR that provides vehicle history information reported to CARFAX.
• The CARFAX Buyback Guarantee protects consumers from certain severe incidents that result in branded titles that have been issued by a state Department of Motor Vehicles.6
• A CARFAX VHR may disclose information such as title problems (including salvage, junk or flood), ownership history, accidents/frame damage and service records.
• See Carfax.com for complete details.

 

Exact same thing happened to me with a Mazda CX-7 with 9k miles on it when we bought it. They showed us a clean car history report (not Car Fax) when we bought it. After a year of front end problems (under warranty) and noticing some paint starting to flake off the front bumper, I decided to pay for my own history report (Car Fax now) and it showed it was in an accident and had to be towed from the scene. I was pretty pissed. But since we had driven it for well over a year, I guess I wasn't expecting to get the full purchase price back, but I sure as shit didn't want to be stuck with the instant depreciation of now owning a damaged vehicle. After multiple visits, a lot of bitching, and finally threatening to write the attorney general, they gave us what I thought was a fair trade-in price on it. Well over what blue-book was.

To be fair, I don't think they intentionally swindled us. They only know what the original history report had said.

 

Sorry to hear it.
Get a second opinion from another dealer or reputable shop. Be amicable during your meetings with the various people you'll have to go through to get to the GM. Get copies of everything. Record the meeting if possible. If and when you don't get the desired outcome, get in your truck and drive it through their showroom! Just kidding. As Larry said "slide the lawyer thread softly on them". But my feelings are you are SOL. I Hope I'm wrong. Good luck!

 

Whatever you wanna say. Look at their checklist. It is intended to certify against previous damage and other issues your average consumer wouldnt know how to look for, otherwise what good is the certification? A good lawyer would have no problem arguing exactly that and the dealership and their lawyers know it.

Personally I would have already contacted a lawyer before ever going back to the dealer. I would let them know it too and hand them his office number before they even have a chance to tell me no.

OP, you are going to have to take the fight to them on this one, but let them know you mean business from the get go.

 

Go CarProof if possible next time, I've used both and CarFax seems to miss a number of things somehow, like lien status and a more comprehensive history report. Might just be my experience, but either way I'm sorry to hear your predicament OP, shitty deal.

 

I question the value of CarFax. As noted, some stuff doesn't show on it that does on other title history vendors.

From a personal standpoint, I was looking at a 2013 at a dealer in Williamstown, WV; who had a ton of used Tacos, does lifts and such, basically is like a local used Tacoma specialist. The truck I was interested in had a lot of missing interior pieces, missing spare tire, and the driver's mirror was obviously an aftermarket replacement and the door didn't seem to line up quite right when compared to all the other Tacos on his lot. He pulls the CarFax at my request and acted surprised when it showed "rollover crash". Then goes on to tell me that he knows the crash history and it was a minor crash that was not a rollover because they bought it crashed and fixed it. Here's the point: when I asked him how bad this would affect resale down the road if I did buy it, he told me, no problem, he would contact CarFax and they'd adjust their report. Sure enough, he calls me a few days later to tell me the report had been fixed and no longer read "rollover crash", now it was a much more minor sounding description of the events.

Clearly the dealer has the power to challenge Carfax reporting and get them to modify the results in their favor.

I obviously did not buy that truck.

 

From I have been told, info on Carfax is based on voluntary reporting. Title change/status and registration changes are linked to DMV databases, but anything else is voluntary.

Not completely sure, just what I have been told.

 

It can take a long time for the insurance companies to settle everything on both parties ends, long after everyone has been paid out. Carfax isn't the law. Autocheck is what the auctions use, but that can miss things too. Best thing to do is be an informed consumer. Look for paint lines, vin tags, and orange peel when you're shopping for a car

 

Kinda what I was thinking.
Carfax is a joke and it is not required to file a report with them anyway. Not sure there is any legal thing saying they have to tell you of any damage, either. As long as it has been repaired properly, there should really be no issues. I've seen cars wrecked on test drives, the dealer fixes it, and no way they are gonna report that.
You're gonna need more than one person to say that there is frame damage and it is beyond repair for anything to happen about this purchase.

 

Interested in finale results from dealer.

 

You may have a case, wherein you relied upon CARFAX to give you up-to-date accurate information. and by delaying said information resulted in a fraudulent conveyance of the vehicle to you by the dealership who know or should have known the condition of the property and should have informed you of same. During your conference with the dealership, before saying that you will sue, you can a) get them on you side against CARFAX, or b) let them know you may file a complaint with the AG for your state. That will get the dealership's attn, as there are entire sections of the AG office in almost every state that go after bad dealers. The AG office complaints are public, so you can look up the dealership before doing business etc.

 

Don't forget CarFax only reports if there was a policy report / insurance claim. My wife clipped a barrier at a gas station (don't ask) and tore up the side of her car. The estiamte to repair was only slightly higher than her deductible so she elected to pay for it out of pocket rather than take the hit on her insurance since she was at-fault. That damage would never pop up on her CarFax.

I stuffed my Accord after being cut off and locked up on in a constructino zone on the highway. Since 95% of collisions where you hit someone end up showing you at fault, i didn't bother pursuing a claim and stripped he car down. Long story short it didn't end up showing up on my insurance, but I wasn't paid a claim either. I ended up selling the car to a junkyard so the junked status showed up on the title, but the accident didn't. I could have easily put a new hood/fenders/core support on the car and it would show up with a clean title.

It's different if you have a PPI that shows no collision damage, but I don't necessarily trust the CarFax blindly because there are cases where you can easily damage a car and not have it report. I think new car dealers are allowed up to $500 in repairs on a new car and not have to disclose to a buyer.

 

Carfax has plenty of disclaimers that's they aren't liable. Not everyone reports to carfax, and carfax can only report the information they're given. Like anything it's a guide. It's up the the consumer to interpret info and make their own decision