QUESTION
Do I have legal grounds to sue a dealership for furnishing a report that shows a vehicle was never damaged when in fact it was?
Asked on Jul 19th, 2014 on Civil Litigation - California
More details to this question:
I asked for a carfax report on the vehicle I was going to purchase I was told that they use NMVTIS. When I traded in the car on July 4th I Was Told by the dealer that they ran a CARFAX and it showed that was structural damage to the vehicle one month before I purchased it. I have a copy of both reports. I feel that the dealer knew that vehicle history and intentionally gave me a report that covered it up. Do I have a case against them?
1 ANSWER
If the dealership knew about the damage and lied about it or failed to disclose it, you may have a good case, but this will be very difficult to prove. I know from experience in another case that carfax reports (NMVTIS is probably the same) can be somewhat out of date, and don't catch damage or other events in a vehicle's history until some time after the fact. The dealership may not have been aware of the problems, or at least can plausibly claim that it wasn't.
Answered on Jul 21st, 2014 at 2:06 PM