Well those of you who followed my other thread might have heard, but I bought a 2004 S2000 last week. The car was $24,400 and had 2,237 miles on it. I had the car inspected by Honda (and paid for it) before buying it (it was from a used car dealer) and they told me it was perfect, but that turned out to be inaccurate.

After going on a week long (2,000 mile) Christmas trip, I was able to find that back bumper was not clipped on right. I got back home today and took it to a professional body shop and they inspected the car. They were able to tell me that the car didn't have a major accident, but it did get hit on the rear passanger side. The back bumper was changed and the rear quarter panel had some work done on it. The whole car was also repainted. He said the body work was not first class work, but the rest of the car seemed to be fine.

I met with my lawyer today and he looked over everything. We signed no type of contract with the dealer other than the title, tag, et cetera. The car was sold to me under the pretense that it was perfect and had no paint or body work every done. He says that the dealer is responsible and even if they did not do the work they should have been able to find this and dislcose it when I asked, which I did not even have to because they volunteered that the car was perfect. The dealer bought it from auction before. He is contacting the dealer and requesting $8,000 from them to have the rear bumper and possibly quarter panel fixed right (and the paint if need be) and pay for the diminished value of the vechile so I don't get screwed when I go to sell or trade it in later. He says that is the easiest way to go as getting a sale re-versed is not easy. He says they may, however, OFFER to buy it back when they recieve his demand letter.

All that being said, does that sound right to you? That will in turn make it $16,400 I paid for the car plus whatever it costs to get the body work fixed on the back of the car. I think this sounds about right as the body shop I took it to contacted their buyer for me and he said that they would probably offer about 3,000 under it's normally trade-in value because of the fact it was repaied and repainted.

Any input appreciated, God's blessings . . .

- J

 

Sorry but your lawyer is smoking crack. If he can get you the money, he's a great lawyer. If the previous work/accident was never reported the dealer might not have known. If someone does a carfax, it probably doesn't show up. The work would have to be really shoddy in order to be able to tell. If the car didn't have a major accident, there really isn't that much if any diminished value. You didn't sign anything stating that the car was never in an accident nor that it was "perfect". You bought an used vehicle.

 

 

BTW, I find that when you deal with bodyshops, all of them will tell you that another shops work is shoddy. Unless you are bestfriends or related to the shop owner, take their descriptions with a grain of salt. If you bought the car, you obviously walked and inspected it. If it wasn't blatantly noticable then it really can't be that bad. Bad work is really obvious, especially with certain colors.

 

Well I guess we will just have to wait and see. I do have in writting the dealer saying the car was perfect and never had any paint or bodywork.

As far as the carfax, it is indeed clean. The work though is kind of obvious when you remove the carpet in the trunk (which they led me to by leaving a few clips off). I don't know how badly it would diminish the value of the car, but the body shop did tell me that the work was not anything they would give to a customer and looked more like work done by a used car lot to hide stuff. When you remove the carpet there is a lot of bondo on that quarter panel. In retrospect I should have noticed this before, but I made the mistake of thinking that Honda would do a good inspection when I paid them to look at it for me prior to buying.

I am confident in the bodyshop though as I am great friends (old family ties) with the manager and he was the one that did the inspection. They did not charge me for the inspection and even said they were to backed up to do anything for months if I wanted them to fix it. I'm also fairly confident in what the lawyer told me as the body shop manager told me his buyer said the same thing (that if we didn't sign an as is statement and they sold it to me under false pretense that they are liable).

We shall see . . . thanks for the replies thus far.

 

Take a pic of the trunk area, I'd like to see what we are talking about. Most of the time it still comes down to buyer beware. Does the paperwork state "to our knowledge the car hasn't had any bodywork" because that would mean they have an out.

 

See my below post, you posted a reply before I finished editting.

 

Understand something, I'm rooting for you. But $8k is a lot to ask for especially if a buyer would ask for $3k less then normal value. Where is the other $5k going? It sure as hell doesn't cost $5k to fix the rear bumper and quarter panel. Which by the way are probably fine if you didn't see it upon your own visual inspection. Your lawyer is just being a lawyer.

 

Oh I agree totally, he told me to get an estimate on the repair to get it fixed right and then find out a reasonable amount for the diminished value. He just threw out his own number of 8k. That was the point of this post, heh. He isn't trying to make money off the deal as he is doing it as a favor. He is a family colleague/client.


I will take a picture of the trunk over the weekend when I can. The proof on paper is correspondance from them saying "No paint, no bodywork, no flood, its perfect!" I understand no used car is perfect, but I think if/when you see it you will see this is far from nitpicking.

Upon my initial inspection on their lot I did not see anything wrong, but they are a dealer that typically does export vechiles and most everything on their lot was a salvage repaied vechile (they did not tell me this before hand or I probably never would have gone). They told me they had the car for several months as they decided over the summer they wanted to start selling higher end cars and bought a few at auction but then was not able to sell them (the s2000 and two other nice cars they had) for several months due to the nature of their lot. At that point I said I would not even consider the car without having it professionally inspected. They originally said they would not let it leave the lot, but when I said I would take it to Honda they agreed as long as it was the nearest Honda dealer and they could go with me. I of course agreed to that and figured I might as well do it just in case I find a good deal.


When it checked out I went for it because, like I said, I made the mistake of thinking Honda would do a quality check on the vechile. It was not until I was driving in front of my familys car at Christmas that I was told that it looked like the bottom of the rear bumper vibrated a little bit on the highway. At that point I started looking at it myself and noticed clips were missing on the rear bumper that holds it in place. I then got suspicious and got under the car and started looking through the trunk and it was then I saw supporting evidance that work was done on the back end. The bodyshop confirmed it for me, and also pointed out visual evidance that it was repainted.

 

Wait so are you asking the money from the Honda Dealer or from the Dealership you bought it from?