If there was no damage then the dealer is correct but carfax could be sued for damaging the value of his car with a fake report
OP should have done his due diligence and had the car inspected at a 3rd party garage of his choice. It’s a used car.
Im surprised no one here is suggested you to sue someone… Good sign.
In all honesty, I think you need to deal with carfax on why the heck it took them 6 years to update the report on your car and what is the use now that you trusted them back in 2013. Yes I know they will say that it takes time and things dont report overnight. But then they should also not take 6 years.
As for the dealership… If they really did sell you a structural damaged CPO, then I doubt anyone on their end will do anything after 6 years.
Lesson for everyone else: Stop blindly trusting on car fax and autovin etc. Private inspection by a good mechanic costs less than $100 and the value is much greater when you are investing thousands in what you may think is a great car.
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Also, to add… Take it to carmax for an appraisal and see if there inspectors catch something on structural damage. That should’t cost you anything and will give you the right answer whether the dealer is wrong or car fax.
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It’s a 7 year old Infiniti. Yes, this is annoying. However if the car was repaired correctly and is in good shape, as time goes on the hit to value relative to an unblemished one will diminish.
I’m willing to bet that even if it were perfect, you would be unhappy with the value - the G37/Q40s depreciate HARD. They are great cars, but you’ll never get a number that is indicative of its personal value to you.
Def agreed that he should’ve done the 3rd party thing
It’s a buyer beware situation. He bought a used car and the warranty has since expired.
The warranty service provided a product for a limited time period and that time period as expired. He didn’t buy a certified warranty to increase the value of his vehicle at resell, he purchased it for peace of mind for a period of time to cover any issues that come up during the period of coverage. In my mind, the dealership and warranty carrier held up their side of the deal and satisfied the terms.
OP should take the car to an independent mechanic for a full inspection before proceeding with anything else. He needs to find actual evidence of the structural damage. If there isn’t any, then carfax is wrong and the dealer did not lie. If there is damage, then the dealer should offer a goodwill package to make OP whole.
5+ years ago I purchased a used ‘06 Tundra from an Acura dealer (got a good deal, since the previous owner “modified” the car - low profile bling bling rims, aftermarket radio, etc…). The auto check did show an accident on record, but I’m not too worried about those - have owned my share of cars with “rebuilt” titles. Fast forward to last year - had an itch to upgrade the truck and took it to a Ram dealer for trade it in. Surprise surprise - the latest and greatest Autocheck shows the old accident with frame damage and airbag deployment (not part of the report 5 years ago). Guess what - the dealer would only offer me something like $4k for the truck - no bueno in my book. Yeah, it sucks losing some equity in the car - in the end, decided to drive the good ole’ Tundra for couple more years (maybe even hit the 200k mark - @160k now).
I did also purchase the Certified Wrap Warranty from the dealership for $2100. This is handled by MPP and is only available for Certified vehicles. The car is still covered by this extended warranty for 10 years/125K miles.
I just emailed Carfax to request the contact info of the source that reported the structural damage report. A few body shops I called have seemed uninterested in inspecting the vehicle. They explained they don’t want to be liable for any missed findings in their report.
As some have pointed out - buyer beware even if a car is Infiniti Certified Pre Owned.
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What about the “carfax guarantee”? Do you still have the report from when you bought it? Should be in the purchase paperwork, if they provided a copy, which they should have.
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I wont be surprised, if they didn’t. Lot of dealers don’t include it
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Not sure how long the CarFax guarantee lasts for, highly unlikely it extends 5-years out though.
OP here is a game plan to try if I were you:
(DISCLAIMER: NOT AN INTENT TO DEFRAUD ANYONE. FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSE ONLY)
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Get an appraisal from Vroom and Carvana. Do not disclose frame damage. (V. IMP: READ DISCLAIMER AGAIN ABOVE)
If you have damage on the car, one of their systems will pick it up. If they don’t, they will send you proper appraisals which are inline of what you would expect for any clean title, accident free vehicle of the same as yours. -
Go and get an appraisal from Carmax. They would think you are selling them the car, so they do a very thorough inspection. If anything comes up, they will let you know and they might not even offer anything, if they find structural damage.
If they do offer you something and also report damage, compare there offer to vroom / carvana appraisals. -
If they do not find any damage, then obviously carfax has an issue which you can either continue to pursue with them OR just sell your car to either one of the above and close this out.
What’s the actual difference in value? As in, have you had the car appraised (trade-in, Carmax, etc) and what’s the book trade-in value? I think at most, the delta there is the most you could probably seek. The question is if it’s even worth it to pursue this if it’s not a huge delta.
Looked it up and 2012 G37x with about 80k miles and a selection of options (18" wheels, sunroof, sport seats) is worth about $7,300 trade-in. If, for example, your offers are in the $5k range, then there’s your ‘damage’: $2,300. This is hypothetical, but just posing this as food for thought.
Depending on whether it’s worth it for you or not, you may be better just keeping the car til the end of the 10-yr/125k warranty (so at least you get the value of it - otherwise, it effectively has near zero technical effect on market value, even if transferable) and then just run it as long as it makes sense to do so past that.
Here’s another solution - file a complaint with Carfax, dispute that it has frame damage, make a point about it having been certified and passing Infiniti’s ‘stringent’ standards at the time. You may be able to get Carfax to drop the notation from the carfax report. I’m being dead serious, had a friend who did this with a certified Audi A6 years ago. The dealer may even help you achieve this (they did in my friend’s case) as its in their best interests as well - but note: you may want to abide by the ol’ adage ‘you get more flies with honey than vinegar, etc’ assuming you haven’t already burnt that proverbial bridge.
Don’t they offer their “clean report” guarantees, up to some amount? Why not to ask them about the original clean report then?
Edit: I see @Qbrozen already mentioned it.
A point regarding the Carfax guarantee: it’s only a guarantee against a branded title, not correct/accurate information. Does not sound like it applies here since there wasn’t any mention of it having changed to a salvage title, etc
Thanks for the replies. Here’s some more info and an update.
I did complain to Carfax earlier this month. That’s how i got them to investigate the issue. They were adamant it was accurately reported and refused to remove the record.
I’ve called a few more body shops and found only one that is willing to inspect the car for “a few hundred bucks” (quoted over the phone). Most shops recommended I try to find out who reported the damage to Carfax.
I’ve emailed Carfax again today to ask for that info.
I already previously tried checking the value of the car at Vroom and Carvana but at the time I did so, I informed them of the damage. Vroom offered $7000. I can’t find the Carvana offer but it was around $6400 or something like that. Carvana’s email says they use AutoCheck. I don’t think AutoCheck shows the structural damage reported.
I haven’t been to Carmax. Maybe if I have time I’ll try seeing what they offer.
I plan to sell the car because I just leased a minivan which I need for my family. I probably won’t sell to a dealer since I can get more money by selling it privately. Especially since I can transfer the warranty which might be valuable to a private party buyer. I will be disclosing the reported damage to any potential buyers for my own peace of mind. Hopefully a $2100 warranty will give them peace of mind.
Hmm. Personally (and given the present situation), I’d probably let it go to Vroom or Carmax. The delta from trade-in to private party according to Edmunds is roughly $1850. You’ll have to deal with the lowballers given the structural damage disclosure and probably more than a few tirekickers who will ask you a hundred questions and then flake out anyway.
But on the other than, as you said, you do have the long warranty that, if transferable, does give a decent length of coverage and if you’re not under time pressure, there’s no harm and trying out the private party market to see if there’s some serious buyers that aren’t too concerned about previously repaired structural damage.
Anyway, keep us posted either way.
How much did you expect to get?
Carvana and Vroom actually offered me more than I expected considering the damage. Autonation Hyundai Tempe offered me $4000 when I was looking to buy a Santa Fe. The salesman actually said he didn’t really want it due to the history.