We purchased a new car in Oct of 2010 we are the only owners and the car has never been wrecked or repaired in any way. We went to trade it and to our surprise we were told it had been wrecked and repaired. We were amazed as we bought the car new. The dealer showed me the signs and our car truly has had paint and body work performed. Since this was not disclosed to us when we bought it and we bought it new, are we entitled for compensation for the diminished value of our car?
A new car is not a car that has been damaged and repaired and sold like it is new and never damaged at all. The problem is that some states have a specific law that allows a small percentage of the msrp price to be the degree of repair damage and if the repair cost is below that number, the consumer can't do much about it. You need to talk to a local Consumer Law attorney near you to find out what your state law says for sure. Still, in most states you would have a fraud claim and a Udap claim against the selling dealer, at the very least. Car dealers generally have a higher disclosure obligation than an ordinary consumer would have selling the car. If the dealer knows something and realizes that the buyer would want to know about it, but doesn't disclose it, the dealer may be committing fraud by concealment. Every state has its own definition of fraud, but generally it's a lie or something kept hidden that costs you money. There is a big difference in value between a car that has never been wrecked and one that has, even when the repairs are done right. It's called "diminished value" and it means your car is worth much less than one that was not wrecked and repaired. Every state has a “Udap” law although each one is a little different too. These laws are intended to make it illegal for a merchant or business to do anything that is unfair or deceptive or unconscionable to a consumer in a consumer transaction. What might be unfair or deceptive can be a matter of opinion and the facts and circumstances could make a lot of difference. Misleading statements, hiding the truth, saying something is new when it really is used, and committing fraud on a consumer may be violations, depending on exactly what your state Udap law says. The remedies for a violation also are different from state to state but they usually let the consumer decide if they want to cancel the transaction or recover the amount of the over-charge, although some of these laws allow the consumer to recover several times the amount of their actual loss (Ohio is 3 times your damages). You can read a short summary of your state’s Udap law here: http://www.nclc.org/images/pdf/udap/analysis-state-summaries.pdf. To know what all this means in your particular case though you should talk to a local Consumer Law lawyer about your state laws and what your rights are, right away. Call your local attorney's Bar Association and ask for a referral to a Consumer Law attorney near you or you can go to this web site page for a Free Online 50 State National List of Consumer Law Lawyers (http://www.ohiolemonlaw.com/ocll-site/ocll-locate_local.shtml) and find one near you (lawyers don’t pay to get listed here and most of them are members of the only national association for Consumer Law lawyers, NACA.net). But act quickly because for every legal right you have, there is only a limited amount of time to actually file a lawsuit in court or your rights expire (it's called the statute of limitations), so don't waste your time getting to a Consumer Law attorney and finding out what your rights are. If this answer was helpful, please give it a “vote up” rating below. Ron Burdge, www.SalvageTitle.info, www.BurdgeLaw.com
For a Free Online 50 State National List of Consumer Law Lawyers, click here
http://www.ohiolemonlaw.com/ocll-site/ocll-locate_local.shtml
“What is Fraud” is explained in this Legal Guide, click here
http://www.attorneyqna.com/legal-guides/ugc/what-is-fraud-1
Why wrecked cars are dangerous ripoffs, click here to read more
http://www.ohiolemonlaw.com/wrecked-car-ripoff.html
The laws vary from state to state, especially as it deals with a new car. CA has a rule there if the damage is less than 3% of MSRP no disclosure is required. NM law says 6% . I am unsure of the law in TX but, since it is a business friendly state (translation = consumer unfriendly), one would imagine it may be higher still. Contact a local consumer protection attorney to discuss.
http://www.naca.net
In theory, yes, you might be, though without checking, I'm not sure the "lemon law" statute covers that--it's mostly geared toward mechanical problems. The problem I think you may run into trying to pursue any kind of claim is that at this point, you've had the car for a year and a half, and who's to say whether this damage and repair occurred before or after you bought the car? You would be the party with the burden of proof on that issue, and it basically falls into that difficult category of proving a negative, as best I can tell--to prove the car was like that when you bought it, you'd essentially have to prove that no accident and subsequent repair could possibly have occurred I may well be missing something here, but it seems likely that would be very difficult to prove. Maybe if there was someone you gave a ride to every day who would say that they'd ridden to work with you every day in the vehicle for that whole time period, or a neighbor who would say that they'd seen the car in your driveway every day? And then you'd have to bring in a body repair person to say how many days a repair job like that would have taken, so that It would seem unlikely the other witness wouldn't have noticed the at being gone for a week or something. Anything's possible, but I do think you'd have a pretty hard time of it.
