Has Your Car been in an Accident – Buying an accident free car.

Buying an accident free car & avoiding a badly repaired one

People take pride in their cars and want to keep them scratch, dent and of course accident free. However, as we all know accidents happen. The problem is that many cars have had accident damage. This including body panel repairs without the new owner knowing. This is because repairs can be classed as minor and do not show on the relevant searches.

When the time comes to trade-in, one may find that the price offered is well below what was expected. I am not talking about minor scrapes and dents but body panel replacements like doors or wings. So what steps can be taken to make sure you are buying a car that has not had any bodywork or perhaps even more importantly a badly repaired car. Firstly rather obvious really, always ask the suppling dealer “has the vehicle had any bodywork”? However, it always pays to do your own thorough inspection.

You maybe surprised to know this includes new vehicles too. Accidents can happen during transportation or storage. Unless the damage is very bad the vehicle may have been repaired and still sold as new.

Careful Inspection always pays to buy an accident free car

• Never buy a dirty or wet car, always view in daylight and look all around for signs of paint colour variations.
• Look for signs of damaged, loose or badly aligned trim
• Doors not shutting smoothly (sometimes just adjustment)

Below is an example of 1 year old vehicle. Only 700 miles on the clock, at first glance the car looked like new. Looking more closely clues of a door replacement start to become apparent.

Each point on it’s own may not have been a cause for concern and have a reasonable explanation. However, all put together the picture becomes clear the car door has been replaced, all easily missed as a quick glance, the car looked like new. Also granted this is quite a bad example of a repair, but by no means an isolated one.

Not noticed until the vehicle was viewed in direct sunlight, was colour matching. The metallic grey was slightly darker and with more sparkles in some places than original paint.

• Look for misalignment on all the shut lines, bonnet, wings, doors, hatchback / boot.
• Check under the bonnet does anything look different between each side where the car where the wings adjoin.
• Have a good look in the hatchback or boot gulley again for any differences between sides which may suggest repairs.
• Pay attention to the gaps between the front and rear bumpers to the body as they should be fairly consistent and not misaligned.
• Never forget (often overlooked) to inspect the roof.
• Look around head lights, rear lights, door trims ETC for masking lines where parts may not have been removed and sprayed up to.

Parking Dents

One of my pet hates is those irresponsible people that let their car door bang against yours. The ones that never make sure their kids respect other peoples cars and let them jump out of the car with gusto banging against your car door. Although dents can usually be repaired by specialist without any paint or bodywork, too dents many will reduce the vehicles value.

Viewing a dry clean vehicle allows one to look carefully along the car lines. Do this both from the front to the back and back to front You will be amazed at what you can detect rather than just face on. If the vehicle is a good one apart from these sort of dents ask the dealer to get them sorted.

You are happy to buy a repaired car

You maybe happy to buy a car knowing that it has had a body panel replaced. Several new cars these day come with 5 even 7 year warrantees which extend even longer to bodywork. Therefore if you do go down this route, it is very advisable to check any repairs have been carried out by the manufactures recommend repairer. This to ensure that any issues such as corrosion are still covered by the manufactures warranty moving forward.

The above is not intended to be an exhaustive step by step guide to help buy an accident free car, but intended to help anyone wanting some guidance so hopefully this may have helped.

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