i'm thinking about buying a used car. what does the person selling the car have to tell me? are they required to say if the car has been totalled and rebuilt? do they have to tell you if it's been in a flood? how about major accidents where the car wasn't considered a total loss? how about whether it was stolen and recovered?

is it the salesperson's responsibility to inform the buyer of all of these problems? or, is it the buyer's responsibility to ask all of the appropriate questions?


these are the things that scare me about buying used cars. even if you have a mechanic look at it, there are a lot of things you just can't tell.

 

It is the buyer's responsibility to get all that information. Even if the seller tells you that xy&z are true, how do you know they aren't lying?

A Carfax report will tell you alot about a vehicles accident/flood/theft history, though that isn't always 100% accurate.

I would drive a number of cars that are interesting to you, and find a few that you like. Then try to find a mechanically inclined car-guy type friend that will come and check a couple cars out for you. You probably work with someone like this, or can find onein your local MINI club. Even then you are still taking a chance on a used car, but IMHO the savings make it worth it.

 

sorry, i don't know what happened to that other post


yeah, carfax is a joke. i know two friends who had major incidents with their cars and ran their own carfax reports. one had his car stolen, chased and recovered by the police and repaired. the other broke his oil pan and destroyed the engine, so the engine was replaced by a rebuilt one by the dealership.

i'm wondering what it takes to get in the carfax report. that thing seems more useful to the people selling their car to pretend nothing ever happened to it.


also, though, aren't there certain things you are required to tell? like, if the car was declared a total loss by the insurance company and then it is rebuilt, aren't they legally required to tell you? is that a state by state deal?

anyone have any ideas where i could find info on laws for this matter? i just want to be properly armed with the facts before shopping around.

 

Even if they are legally required to disclose something, I wouldn't count on them to tell you the truth. Find someone who knows what to look for to look at your car before buying it.