Interesting fraud issue and the regs to be enforced. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/automobiles/10***LE.html
I may be 'Preaching to the choir' but the article doesn't say that anything is wrong with the Jeep. Did the buyers not have a chance to have it inspected before purchase ??? I searched and could not find any way to respond to the article. NY Times = yellow journalism ???
Looks to me like Joseph and Dotsy been in an accident too--with an Ugly Truck. I don't think Dotsy's even rebuildable. But, like Chuck U&R said (pretty sharp for a newbie...)--that Cherokee might have been fine. That article read like an editorial, not a news story. Sure, their car was "potentially dangerous." So's mine--an explosion happens inside my engine thousands of times per minute and it goes 100 mph. That's dangerous. But, great idea--let's spend billions of tax dollars on a database to help lazy people skip doing their homework. And that caption is irresponsible journalism too--it implies that Ford and Jeep somehow have some effect or influence on who rebuilds the cars they make... <i>“You feel like a human being when you can buy something brand new,” Mr. Fox said.</i> Go buy two toasters and feel like two humans beings if that's how you value your self worth, buddy. Save the bags, lend 'em to your wife.
In Texas, totals that are rebuilt have the ***le branded, but I guess you could sell & ***le it in a state that does not brand the ***le, sell it again with that states ***le, and the buyer would not know unless he ran a ***le history. There is nothing wrong with a rebuilt total if it is done right. I rebuilt a lot of totals back in the '70s and early '80s but the buyers, usually friends, knew that the car was a rebuilt total and they got a helluva deal on a nice late model car. Never had a problem with anything I built. All states should have laws to brand ***les and comply with this law.
the statement: "IF THEY ARE REBUILT RIGHT!" some people think just simply welding two halves of a wrecked car together is fine because they have never watched the two halves seperate in a wreck! having all 50 states together on this issue is a must.
I love the lawyers quote "It was a failure of government". Yes once again the government failed in it's responsibility to wipe the drool off of your chin and protect you from yourself. When will we be protected from government?
what most people like the writer of the artilce don't realize is that a totalled car is based on repair costs VS a deflated value determined by an insurance company who is out to settle a claim as cheaply as possible. 9 times out of 10 the person who gets the check can not buy a comparable model for the amout they were given. also totalling a car has nothing to do with extent of damage. it's all about repair costs. many theft recoveries are totalled due to the cost of putting it back together with no damage at all. that story is ******** anyway... dude says he bought a new car. what happedned? it got totalled on a test drive? fell off the truck on the way to the dealer? if a dealer is selling a new car that has been wrecked that's a whole different deal than selling a used car.
Where does anyone buy a "new" Grand Cherokee for $20,000 any way? That's a $30-35,000 truck.....at least. Hello? That should have sent up red flags right away.
I don't like that article at all, yes I believe all states need to get on board and use the branded ***le system its good for those who don't know what to look for when checking to see if it was in an accident. What I dislike the most about the article is that it was written in a way that made it seem like rebuilt cars are dangerous and could kill you at any moment, when I worked at body shop we rebuilt plenty of cars that SHOULD have been totaled but for whatever reason the insurance company had they weren't even thought the damage was beyond 75% of the value, I also know for a fact that a dealership doesn't have to tell you about damage done to a new vehicle if it is under a certain dollar amount and believe me plenty of brand new cars are damaged in shipping I think I fixed probably one a month. But as long as a car was repaired properly there should not be any worries as to if it is safe or not, besides a salvaged car needs to get inspected before it is issued a rebuilt ***le. I wouldn't be surprised if the guy already knew that the car was damaged and bought it anyway just so he could sue for "undisclosed repairs"
If it was a total , in PA, it has to show on the ***le, It would show as an "R" ***le. If it didn't some one is deep ****. I bought a two year old Chev S-10 a few years back with an "R" ***le really cheap, it was like fortyone hundred bucks with less than 2000 miles on it. It was pieced together right behind the cab, so I don't know how many miles were on the back half. I knew it, the dealer told me, very up front and it was a great cheap, little truck, didn't run down the highway sideways or nothing. It went under in a flood.. Car God karma I guess.
It is kind of wild. It is certainly a failure of government. is that the same government that now wants to run our health care system?
Why is it that they're just now complaining about a 'new' vehicle they bought 7 years ago ??? Sounds like a scam to me !!!
It takes a LOT of damage to render a new or very late model car "totalled"...due to the fact that the car's value is still so high. As cars age and value depreciates, it takes much less damage to have it declared "totalled". The older cars can sometimes easily be repaired and returned to the highways without much chance of a dangerous condition existing. The newer, high value, cars are more likely to be repaired and returned to the owners...rather than being declared totalled and sold for salvage. So, the whole process of branding tiltles is flawed. Cars that had suffered very serious damage and repairs when they were new are still being driven with ***les that are "clean", while older cars, damaged years after they were new and now have low value, are having minor repairs performed after being sold as salvage and their ***les are permanently branded "to protect the consumer". Consumers (as usual) had better beware. If they are buying a used car with no "brand" of the ***le, there is little ***urance that the car was never seriously damaged. About the only level of protection the whole program offers is the fact that if you buy an extremely latemodel high dollar car AND it has a branded ***le...you can bet that the car had received some very serious damage in order for it to have been deemed totalled.
We have had a couple of cars totalled out that we turned around and had fixed after buying them back from the insurance company. Niether one was wrecked all that badly, they were just old enough at the time that the repair cost exceeded the market value, to do it right. The one was just about drivable, it needed some time on a frame machine, but only to repair the bumper mount. With used parts and stuff it made it affordable to buy back and have them redone. One got wrecked a second time on black ice several years later, the other we drove until the unibody rotted so badly one of the trailing arms came loose. That car got wrecked twice and still kept on going. People just have no ******* common sense any more, I really wish these idiots who all need someone to hold their hand would move someplace where they already do that - like Russia - and just **** off already. Or at least do the rest of us a favor and not have any kids. I mean what next, will they need a government administrator to show them how to have ***? Who will they complain to if the condom breaks?
what rustynewyorker said! In "thier " perfet world we would all buy a brand new car once a year. Its not about saftey or mileage, it is about the almighty dollar, and keeping the cash flow going to justify thier existence. I always think about cuba, those cars have been on the road since 59 or before, which seems to make the idea of a brand new model EVERY year B.S.
My parents just had their "total loss" car repaired. It's a 03 and the air bags didnot even deploy. Yet the insurance company totaled it. Pops found a local body shop to do the repairs and the car looks and drives same as before. Like earlier post stated, this type of law can hurt the good and only slow down the wrong doers.
On a lot of 1-3 yr old cars, if the airbags go off, the ins companies end up totalling them, because the entire dash has to get replaced to fix the p*** bag. This ****ty law will only end up raising our auto ins rates (again) & wasting our tax dollars. SHAKESPEARE WAS RIGHT "we have to kill all the lawyers".
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