NYC123

I recently purchased a 1996, 993 Turbo with 2670 miles. I have driven the car less than 100 miles since it was delivered to me within the past few weeks. The car was advertised as follows,
“This turbo has only been driven 2670 miles in the past 13 years ! It was special ordered in “paint to match “ Polar Silver with FULL black leather interior, sunroof, and “werks” center console. The first owner kept the car for three years driving it a little over 800 miles a year. He only drove it for pleasure, never in bad weather, always kept it garaged, and had all the scheduled service performed. Because of its great condition and exceptionally low miles the second owner purchased the car for his private collection with the intention of keeping the car just as it was and not adding any more miles. It has only been driven 500 miles in the past year and is in NEW condition.”
I thought I found the perfect 993 TT I had been looking for. Unfortunately I found out 6 days ago that the car was involved in a bad accident in Virginia in 1998, was given a salvaged title, declared a total loss by the insurance company, and sold off to somebody else at the appropriate price considering the condition. I am not going to mention the name of the dealer here as there will be pending legal action against him, but it is a high-end dealer that routinely deals in exotics and classics.
I have spent the past 6 days confirming the salvaged history with the Virginia DMV as well as the body shop that repaired the car over 10 years ago and speaking with multiple people that were familiar with the history of the car. I provided all this information along with 18 detailed photos showing all the signs that the car was not original to the selling dealer. My expectations and my request to the dealer was to return my funds, purchase price, shipping, and tax in return for his car back. The dealer has continued to refuse and has only pretended to tell me about “light accident history” before I bought the car. Considering I paid 2x the price of what a salvaged car would be worth and considering his ad above, I don’t think it takes Sherlock Holmes to figure out he is lying and concealed from me any damage other than a “scratch” he claimed was on the fender at the time of delivery and repaired by Porsche before the first owner would accept it.
The car changed hands 1 time before this dealer bought it and because of some DMV issues ended up with a clean title before this dealer acquired it. I don’t want to debate here or make my case if the dealer was disclosed the salvage history because I want to save some issues for court, however the fact that the carfax shows it, the car if looked at shows it (and he claims to be an expert on Porsches) and he is now pretending to tell me about some accident history all has some clear implications that he is 100% full of ****.
Only sticking to the facts above I would love to hear some feedback from some fellow enthusiasts as well as anybody with a legal background how everybody thinks this will play out in court. Thanks for your feedback in advance and everybody should take the time to use carfax in the future, I wish I had.
(And yes a “werks” center console when translated from Scumbag to English means a phone kit where the owner removed the phone over time)

Chris C.

Wow. No experience here, but best of luck. I would say you're being kind to not disclose the dealer name. I only hope you get full restitution and that the NY Attorney General takes interest

flash1034

Unfortunately for you, the courts have almost always cited "Caviate Emptor" or buyer beware when hearing these kinds of issues. You have an uphill battle here. Get an attorney. You are working a fraud case.

Flash

P.J.S.

name the dealer publicly -- maybe some public pressure will help
(of course I am hot head though which means that my first instinct is almost always wrong)

I am sorry that you have to deal with this

Did you have a PPI done?

MartyB

As in most cases of fraud, the difficulty you may have is in proving the dealer's knowledge of the car's history. Without intentional misrepresentation, you have no fraud. I'll bet if you schedule depositions of everyone in the chain of ownership, the dealer will start getting nervous - the previous owners will want to make it clear that there was full disclosure on their part, which naturally helps your case.

Land Jet

Why post this thread in every chat room if you are not going to disclose the dealer name and save someone else from this fate? Sorry for your problem, dealers are liars. But you should at least look out for the next guy.

NYC123

I did not disclose the dealers name because I dont want him to accuse me of slander when this goes to court. Sorry.

Carrera GT

I think naming the dealer will help discover other people with similar problems.

I'm sorry to hear of these unscrupulous bastards, but hard times bring them out of the woodwork.

By the way, in '96, Polar Silver Metallic was an optional paint, not paint to sample.

Also, the DMV in some states does not reliably gather, record or report information about vehicle histories (Florida being one state where I read about a similar horror story.) Carfax reports on public information records that can take literally years to reflect the facts. In this case, no doubt it helped, but people buying a one year-old car shouldn't rely upon carfax.

Why this 993 topic is here in the 997 area, I don't know. Did you use the 993 Turbo forum to ask for advice beforehand? Was there any sort of PPI? It sounds like you're about to spend $10K on legal fees to get a court ruling in your favor and a settlement of say $25K that the dealer will avoid paying for years to come. Assuming you paid around $60K for a car worth maybe $30K, the legal system, in my experience, is not well suited retrieving these kinds of amounts. I don't know how VA handles these kinds of consumer fraud cases, if they allow punitive action or if they protect the consumer (or the small businessman from "nuisance" litigation.) You'll need to pay an attorney the first couple of hours just to find your bearings and it sounds like that's where you're at already.

Perhaps the state has arbitration laws or you could retain an attorney for a nominal amount, say $5K, to pursue the matter, negotiate with his attorney and arrive at a settlement. Expect this process to take two or three months all told. Of course, that's a two-edged sword -- the dealer should be made to realize you have a storm of hornets up your **** and you're not going to calm down. He's going to have legal fees and he's going to have the time sink of defending himself and dealing with court appearances as well as you running a 'discovery' campaign (advertising, picket line) to discover other customers with similar experiences with this dealer. If you have an attorney represent you (never do the face to face negotiation work yourself, you'll screw it up) he or she can do a good job of indicating to the other party that you have a battle plan that stretches out a year and involves actively ruining his business, his personal life and his finances. You're out $30K and you're going to get your money's worth.

If your state has Bureau of Automotive Repair or the like, that's your starting point. And the BBB. Threaten this dealer with the loss of his business and you've got leverage to get out of the deal. If this dealer made representations about the car, the onus is on him to verify the facts -- any disclaimer would not indemnify him from fair business practices.

You might do something like go there and photograph each car on the lot today and record the registration and VIN along with the current advertising or written description of the car by the dealer. Then get a carfax on each of them. If there's any other salvage titles undisclosed, you've got a slam dunk. But getting your money is still going to require more than a court order or settlement. Your next step is get the settlement increased after failure to comply. Then send it to a debt collector and attack the dealer for his credit rating as a business and as an individual. Get assets frozen by the court and you'll have this guy in bankruptcy before next summer. If that's how you want to spend your time.

I wouldn't shoot for the whole out-of-pocket, I'd suggest you eat some of the expenses and work on a number that sees him take back the car and you get your fingers burned. You could have this thing settled by the end of next week and be maybe $5K out of pocket and getting on with your life.

Otherwise, this thing will eat you alive for the next six months or a year or more and you still probably won't see your money.

At the end of the day, all this behind you, good luck finding a nice 993 Turbo. I've had a Polar Silver one for almost ten years now and I have to say it's still the most enjoyable and rewarding 911 I've owned.

996FLT6

Did u pay alot for this car- is it worth the hassle to go thru in court? I always thought if u go in court everyone loses no matter who's right. It usaually settles out of court so depend on what u looking for. If u want to make it a point and no fear of losing then go for it. Mike

Carrera GT

It's only slander if you say something slanderous! So long as you're not malicious, you can post any public information here. A web site for the dealership and a Google search is a good starting place.

I think if you describe your situation as "I bought a car a few days ago and I've just discovered it has a salvage title. The dealer won't take it back. What are my options?" You don't have any accusations or libel to worry about.

Also, if the car was found through an advertiser like eBay, you need to get copies of that listing before they're removed from their site and you'll eventually need to have to court instruct that advertiser to disclose or all previous car advertisements so you can go looking for VINs of other salvage title cars not disclosed.

The more I think about it, the harder it gets for the dealer to plead "don't know." Once you get the records of their purchase of the vehicle (presumably from auction) you'll find the auctioneer disclosed the facts. If it was a dealer trade, the selling dealer will be at fault if the salvage title was not disclosed. If the dealer selling to you has a practice of mentioning carfax or "clean title" or any other claims for this or other cars for sale, again, it becomes beyond reasonable doubt for the court to conclude that this is a scum-bag car dealer.

I imagine that carfax keeps records of all enquiries. The dealer would have a carfax account. Carfax would be able to identify when the dealer searched the vin of the car.

I'm no lawyer and again, while I think you have a good case, you've also got a lot of work and a lot of time and expense to win that case.

NYC123

He is in CA you guys can figure it out

andrew2008

I totally agree with this. Getting lawyers involved will cost more than
you think, take longer than you think and cause you a lot of stress.
And all this with no guarantee of a favorable outcome.

That being said, if you can *prove* fraud on the dealers part your
case is much stronger. That would put you in a better position to
negotiate a favorable settlement. Good luck!

Do you have any pics of the accident damage?

stevecolletti

This car?
http://www.canepa.com/inventory/coll...rbo/index.html

NYC123

that looks like a link to a really nice car. Too bad the car was rebuilt 12 yrs ago in Brooklyn after the entire car was totalled in Virginia.To make it worse it was not even built using new parts but USED parts. I think he hired the marketing department from Enron to sell his cars.

Carrera GT

I can't believe Bruce Canepa is capable of this foul play. I'd like to think there's more to the story. I'm not at all suggesting the buyer is misrepresenting his situation. Equally well, from what I know of Canepa, selling a salvage title car at all, let alone under false pretenses just doesn't fit.