I have saved every wrecked photo of 05+ I've seen. Then months down the road see cars for sale. Do you think this is the same car? One clue I think the left head light was reused.

 

I'd be hard pressed to assume that it's a total write off. It doesn't look much worse off than my car, which was repaired.

what are you looking at on the lights that suggests it was re-used?

 

Not much, they do a good job . I noticed that the left light is not as clear and new as the right.

 

Look out for the Katrina damaged cars.thats gonna be a huge scam

 

why are the pics all garbled up. couldnt you let us see the full photos?

 

Could simply be a trick of the light. It's a car under a year old, the plastics of a new headlight aren't going to look noticeably different from those of an original.

 

If an insurance company is ever involved it will show on carfax, only when its paid for out of pocket it does not.

Paintwork on a used car is very easy to spot. 90% of the time the work is sub par and can be seen easilly with the eye(most people dont know crapy paintwork, they only know shiny or not and just take whatever the painter comes up with after a repair). Under hoods you can spot bolts(almost always its the hood/fender/trunk bolts) that have been loosened(they are factory painted assembled with bolts in place). You can typically also find wet-sand dripping residue down in the bowles of the engine bay along fenders. Overspray on panel edges and wheelwells, paint on the lips of rubber trim and mirrors, along plastic trim, in the very corners of keyholes, tape lines around factory weight/vin stickers in door jambs, etc. You can also find chips that were missed/skipped in prep very low on the car and show through the top coat paint. Best place to find overspray on rubber is along the A/B/C pillar because cars with damaged roofs are usually write-offs so they often only paint front/rear/sides and mask/blend around windshields. 10 minutes with a used car in good light will almost always yield some evidence of any repairs.

Good wholesalers use paint meters that detect the smallest fraction of thickness deviation. They don't want them because decent dealers wont buy them from 'em. Most large auto dealers that sell preowned along with new avoid painted/repaired/branded title cars like the plague, there's so many used cars its pointless risking getting stuck with a bad one. However, if the repair was minor, like a fender bender and the paintwork looks perfect and properly repaired, It does not necessarilly mean its a bad car either. Most dealers have a paint person on site to repaint scuffed bumpers(a LOT of cars get this service) and its from minor damage. Usually its not something to be concerned with if no evidence of underhood components appear to be otherwise perfectly intact.

You can also use these techniques to find bad body/paint work on your own car if you just had it repaired. Be very carefull looking over everything before signing off and taking the vehicle from a shop.

 

Kevin, Thanks..that is a lot of good info that I did not know. I always wondered about the carfax and why they have clear titles.
heres one I found after reading your post. Thanks again..Rich
http://www.salvagedirect.com/asp/viewitem....d=591782&bhcp=1

 

I did not want to show the dealers lot, by the way your car is wicked cool :worship:

 

Theres nothing left of the left headlight to reuse?

 

You have a point there. I can see it around the hood, but I doubt it was re-usable.

 

lol, I'm sure he meant the passenger headlight which is on the leftside of the above photo.


Click the link in my sig. there are photos of the O5 where the plastic is fogged in the picture, actually looks fake. It is the nature of the design and angle of lighting available at time of photo.

I also agree the car is too new to tell a difference there with an OEM part. What you would look for is a very poor quality 3rd world market highly subpar low cost replacement as a huge tell tail.

When looking at any used car or new for that matter, one needs to look it over three or four times to finally find tell tail faults to find repairs or coverups. At first you just see a car that must be better than the one you own, follow? Plus it takes an eye for detail that most of public does not have.

 

If you are really intrested in knowing if the cars are repaired and resold, just make note of the VIN when you take the pictures.