I just bought an 07 IS350 and had it delivered from Chicago to New Mexico. I really didn't want to buy a car I couldn't see so I had an appraiser go check it out and he said everything looked good on the car. Well It got here and I washed it because it was dirty from the transport and noticed a lot of scratches. Well I put it out in the sun to get a better look and noticed the paint didn't seem to match on some of the panels and you could tell it had been color sanded. So I took it to a friend that owns a body shop and he said the rear quarter panel had bondo on it. He also said you could tell the roof, hood, rear passenger door, and side skirt had been painted.

I bought the car from the Mercedes dealer in Chicago and it had a clean carfax but is there a way I can return it or am I stuck with it?

Also it has this sticker under the hood but not sure what it means.


Thanks,
Tim

 

ouch. sounds like it was rolled.
unless there's some actual lies in how it was described to you (missing information doesn't count), i expect you're stuck with it.
but besides the car's 'history', hopefully it will drive well and you'll get to enjoy it.

 

Yeah, I'll agree with ^. As long as the car's functional, and meets your expectations in the other areas, you should be fine.

 

Did you run the Carfax yourself or did the dealer? You might want to read through the Carfax buyback Terms.

If you bought the car through ebay you may want to contact them as well and see if they could be of any assitance.

Hope everything works out for you.

 

Welcome to CL as a new poster.

It might have (possibly) been rolled, as bitkahuna above suggests, but, more likely, the roof/hood/side/quarter-panel body-work was due to something like a couple of tree-branches or other debris falling on it during a storm. If it had been rolled, it would (probably) have been totalled by the insurance company due to the complexity/expense of repairing an extensively-damaged unibody-frame.

Did it pass a safety-inspection in your state (NM) (if your state has one)? You may (?) not be able to register it until it does.

Who was this "appraiser"? I won't criticize him (or her) without knowing more about this person, but, for the record, there are a lot of so-called self-proclaimed "experts" out there who think they know how to properly check out a used car, and, in fact, don't.

 

I actually found the car on AutoTrader. The dealer looked up the Carfax and so did I because I looked at a few IS350's before I bought this one.

I finally contacted the General Sales Manager of the dealer today and told him that either they give me $2,000 to fix the paint right or just take the car back. I'm still waiting to hear back from them though.

I have a friend that owns a good paint shop around here and he's the one that actually went around the car with me and pointed everything out.

I did learn a valuable lesson though, never trust Carfax and don't pay a "certified" appraiser to go look at a car.

I tried to upload the pdf I sent both of the dealer and appraiser but it keeps saying it failed.

Does anyone know what that sticker means? I asked a friend that works in the service department at Toyota and he said he's never noticed a sticker like that on any of the cars.

 

I did a google on those number (for parts 89661‑53783 I assume) and it came up with this

not sure if it's correct

http://www.lexuspartsnow.com/parts/l...661-53783.html
http://is.sewellparts.com/oem-catalo...S350-2007.html

35343300 led to the accelerator pedal recall fix

http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/acms/do...9V388-6541.pdf

 

Here are some pictures of what the car looks like.

paint is a little lighter and dull on the left side plus sanding scratches.


Closer view


More sanding scratches


More scratches


Over spray on the door jam


More over spray between the mirror and window


Tape marks


horrible buff job trying to cover up sanding.


Hood doesn't line up


grill is popped out, it's worse than it looks in the pic


Bondo on the rear quarter that you can't see in the pic


Didn't bother putting the seal in right


Not factory windshield, which could have been replaced because of bad crack


All the wheels are curbed like this

 

About the glass, curb rash etc, this is a 4 year old car, yeah there are going to be things like this.

The appraiser if they knew what they were doing should have shared some of the other items with you.

As far as the dealer, unless someone disclosed a bunch of stuff to them and they didn’t share with you, not sure how it’s on them?

Also, I seen cars, bikes, boats like this in the past that had a history of repairs and its often reflected in the price. If you found some crazy deal on it, well it was for a reason and if it was marked down then all is fair, no?

 

Carfax is an excellent service, but it only reports information on file. If the car was heavily damaged it might not have been reported by a repair shop, especially if the repairs were not involved in an insurance claim.

Otherwise, from the pictures, a good detail shop can repair most of the scratches, but you might have a body shop look at the weather seal on the trunk. A water leak can mean problems down the road . . .

 

was the price lower than comparable ones (presumably not with body shop work) you could find locally?

 

for as big a purchase as a car, i'd fly out to see it!

 

I have definitely learned some lessons dealing with this, I'll never buy a car this way again.

I've been going up the chain of command talking to everyone I can and now I'm at the Owner/Partner so we'll see what they say. If I dont hear anything I guess I'm stuck with it, too busy to pursue anything else.

 

see a lawyer. some do a free initial consultation, and it may be worth $.

 

After knowing what to look for on the car you can tell it's not just dirty like I had thought.

The Sales manager said there was no way the car was like that and he would have seen it because he put the car on the truck himself. He also stated that the detail guy would have noticed something like that when he buffed it, and now I know who did the crappy buff job on it too.

You can see in this picture below the tail light where the trunk meets the quarter panel how dull the paint is and then again where the bumper meets the quarter panel by the tire.


It's hard to tell in these pictures but you can still see the marks, I just need to take some more pics in better light.