Thanks guys for all of your support. I have taken extensive photos of the situation today, because I never slept last night. The front spare tire well has some wrinkles. The frame on both sides way before the strut towers has a small kink. Other than that, the suspention mounting points and the rest of the underside of the car is fine. The strut towers and all related parts were never touched. Looks to me like a small slow speed hit, or ran the car up on a curb. I don't know what to say.....this kills me. Well guys I being up front about this mess as I can be. I'm going drinking tonght...

 

I've always known that you should take CarFax reports with a grain of salt but this one blows me away. Let's see, the OP bought the car in 2007 with a supposedly clean CarFax then finds out later on a fresh CarFax report about an accident that happened in 2002. It took 5+ years for the accident to get picked up by CarFax???? What am I missing here? Something sure smells fishy to me.

 

Tell me about it. I have the car fax in my hand and I can't believe it myself.....I guess any document can be forged..OMG

 

It could be just the picture, but the frame rail looks a tad bent right next to the brake master cylinder. Even so, the damage is before the suspension points, so alignment shouldn't be an issue. The trunk pan creases are superficial. Like Mike said, it looks like the car ran over something. Something small. I had some damage on the front of my old RSA and it looked a lot worse, yet I had no issues with fitting the spare tire or alignments at all.

 

Im sorry for your situation and it Sucks a Dealer would do such a thing if they knew about it all along. This just goes to show that a Title is a piece of paper and your paying for the car not the paper.

 

Surprising to me that in all this time you never noticed the damage.

 

Very sorry to see this happen. Hope you can get some resolution from the seller but that could be tough. Good luck

BTW. In one of your pics, the tray looks a little wet under the passenger side steering rack. Just curious if you might have a small leak.

 

The wet spot was the clutch master leaking and running across the plastic cover. I since replaced the master and slave.

 

well, seven pages in...

IMHO, in a nutshell.

low miles, rarity of color, option's, and tasteful mods...MORE than make up for the minor damage that happened. The car is worth every penny of the asking price.

Always one of my favorites. The shot of the body color HB sport seat makes me giggle like a little school girl everytime I see it.

A great car, being sold by an RL'er who has more than demonstrated his uber integrity and honesty. I hope this beauty makes it to Hershey this year, somehow.

 

Hard to say if the dealer knew or not.

It would be illegal for a licensed dealer, sales person, broker, auction house to sell this car without disclose frame damage.

Carfax is slow to update files as much as 90 days. It is best to check the NICB (national insurance crime bureau) for more accurate info because it taps Vin Check as well, which is quicker at updating files.

Looking at the pictures. Yes absolutly it would be classified as frame damaged and there is no getting around it at this point. So you have limited options.

What could have happened if the PO purchased the vehicle in 07 and the crash happened in 02 depending on how the repair was done and who was working on it: it is very possible that it wasn't reported to insurance so therefore it may have never been reported to Carfax.

How it may have been reported to Carfax was if a dealer had the car and it was run through an auction it was likely caught then and reported at that time, which they are legally obligated to do. And visual damage to a structural part of a uni-body car is considered frame damage.

The only way to clear it out now is to have the "frame" certified by a licensed frame shop.

A lot of it does seem superficial but there is a considerable buckle in the rail under there the brake fluid res.

 

Mike, it sucks that you are finding out about this now. Did you have a PPI done on the car? From looking at the photos, someone should have picked up the body damage by just looking under the car. You don't even have to open the trunk.

That being said, I'm sure it's still a great car that I'd love to have in my garage. The damage just takes it out of the pristine league.

 

yeah if you can find the right person to buy it. Good luck with that. It would have to be someone never planning on getting rid of the car because it will be difficult to resell.

IMHO it will as it should take a big hit for the damage and that it seems unclear who know what when.

But that is me, I have a dealers license in good standing and plan to keep it that way.

 

The time delay for car-fax is what is the BIG problem. When my friend purchased this car in 2004, the dealer handed us a clean car fax, I have it with me. As it turns out, years later this pops up. This accident happened before my friend purchased the car and it never hit the original car fax. I had no reason to do one of my own when I purchased it from him, If I had I would have seen this mess. Big mistake.

Well lets see what, if any offers I get.

Thanks for the support guys...

 

This is interesting. Did not know this existed - thanks for pointing it out.
I tried it on my car (no hit), and on a VIN from one of my daughter's old cars that got wiped out (a hit: Total Loss). I bookmarked it.

There are a lot of misconceptions about what Carfax/Autocheck will and won't find. (By the way, if you elect to use them on a car you're serious about, run both. One will many times miss something the other catches). But they are just limited data points.
Two types of cars tend to slip through the Carfax net: company & "fleet" cars, and high-end cars that get put in a company name. They are often self-insured and if anything ever happens, nothing gets reported to an insurance co. Law enforcement reporting is spotty, and especially with "off-road excursions", may never get reported. End result: clean Carfax.

It seems like Barney's damage isn't significant from an operational standpoint. Not too pretty from a bodyshop standpoint - if I were the owner, no way would I have accepted that repair. But he's a beauty, a very unique car and will attract much interest on his own merits. GLWS.

 

Need to put it up on a frame rack and measure it to know for sure how out of spec it its.

I am sure the guy or gal self-paid and had it done on the cheap. That would have never passed out of an ICAR, DRP, insurance or otherwise ligit shop.

He is a unique car for sure, too bad about the damage. It would be an expensive repair to do properly.

I guess if it would at least get into a usable alignment spec it woud be okay they way it is.

For me it would be crushing. It would be like thinking you are buying a Lancia Stratos only to find out it's a Hawk 3000, because it's bad enough to just ignor but not bad enough to spend 10K fixing it correctly.