Well, after having my car for a year, i recently found overwhelming evidence that my car has been in an accident.

here are the signs

driver's side mirror used to be from a purple color celica.
driver's fender has been cheaply repainted
over spray in door jambs
blue ish color showing on bottom of door jamb on the driver's side
left quarter panel window nolding does not match and is not uniform with the roof

among a few other things.

the thing is that before we bought the car, we had the dealer get us a carfax and it was clean, according to carfax. there was, however, a 9 month period where the car was not registered for some reason(i think i know why now)

anyway, as far as i know, dealers are not allowed to sell cars that have had more than $500 in damages. and even then they have to tell you if the car has had any damage.

so tomorrow my dad and i will go to a body shop, get an official report saying it has been in an accident and go show it to the toyota dealer and see what they say(and, we will casually mention that my aunt is a lawyer ).

i was going to install the turbo stuff tomorrow but i have to see how this mess pans out.

damn that sucks go after the bastard!!!

In ontario (canada) we have an agency, OMVIC, that deals with crappy dealers like this. If you asked if it had not been in any accidents and the dealer said no, they are in deep dodo.

Have you had any tire wear problems or allignment problems? If you do, the frame may be bent; big problems. If not, maybe you can get a paintjob out of it.

good luck, keep up posted.

That sucks that the car was in an accident, hopefully the dealer didn't know and they take care of it. Good luck.

they said it was not in an accident. and carfax said the same.

as fow unusual tire wear, i had to get new rear tires because certain spots got bald quick. also the outside edges of the tires on all four corners wore down a lot faster than the rest of the tire

thats weird i just got a 97 ST hatchback and am running into the same problem with the dealer. We took the carpet out of the trunk and found that the whole thing had been stretched back out and re welded except for a few ridges around the spare tire above the suspension which causes the bumpber to buldge out on the sides. where did you hear that they cant sell cars that have had more than $500 in damage?

Yeah...I can't really believe that.

dealers can do all kinds of **** you wouldn't think.

,,,And Carfax only knows about it if it was reported to insurance or police (with the correct VIN) . Its also common practice to ship them out of state to certain states with lax laws and then back in to get a new title issued, seems to lose certain records that way,,, But if it checks out ok and is not too bent, keep it anyway, you have been driving it with no real problems for a while already, (there's nothing wrong with bodywork IF its done properly)
After my Supra got hailed on, I found out it had been hailed on b4 AND had an entire front clip put on, strut towers forward. it still drove and ran fine,,,

i took the car to a shop to have the frame and suspension inspected and they said its ok.

the whole left side has been repaired.

we are probably going to go and just complain, it couldnt hurt to see what happens.

as for the VIN, it matches the car

I hate it when that kind of stuff happens. Dealerships are supposed to have
higher standards/ morals. Thats why most of us avoid buying privately.
It just shows you......trust noone. I'd still go and complain, the least you may
get out of it may be an extension on your warranty or free servicing for the
next couple of years..

Keep us posted.

I just bought my car from a a dealer who repairs cars that were in accidents, so I knew going in that my car was in one. However, the work was done correctly and the guy let me take it to a Toyota Dealer to have it inspected. They told me everything that was wrong with the car and gave me certified copies. Took that info back to the guy, made him an offer based on what I knew about the car. He counteroffered to sell the car at the price he was asking if he fixed all the stuff listed. I agreed. Later found out that he took it to the Totota dealer and had them do the work. Got the car for $6000.75 after taxes

ok, here is what happened.

i took the car to my cousin at the local jeep dealer and he had the cheif mechanic check it for frame damage.

the frame is completely intact.

i went to the toyota dealer and we talked to them. they said that since there was no frame damage, they would only give me a deal on any car in their lot.(they would value my car at $9k)

so i looked around and found a 2000 celica GTS 6spd. we took the car for a test drive and i must say that i was really impressed. the car did not want to move in first but after that, it flew.

after working out the numbers, it came to $5000 to get the GTS. and we came really close to getting the car until the word insurance came up.

so my dad decided to keep my car, which i am perfectly happy with. i always planned to keep my first car and i did not want to move on to a second car that was again fwd and white.

so i didnt get to install the turbo stuff this past weekend, but i did install my gauges and buy the temporary IC piping i will be using. friday i will install the intercooler and saturday moring the turbo goes on and im off to the exhaust shopfor a custom DP

edit:the dealer said that if my paint gets worse on the fender, they will repaint it for free.