Determining if a car has been wrecked/repainted

Accidents don’t deem a car as lesser value. My car was swiped in a parking lot and the rear door and quarter panel were painted. I own a body shop so it was repaired by me, you wouldn’t be able to tell other than a paint thickness gauge.
That said, I went to trade the car and the dealer tried to steal it from me because it had a “dirty” car fax. Absolutely no structural damage. I sold it privately, with full disclosure of everything and got what I was asking.

I would respectively disagree. I will agree that the scenario I'm going to lay out is bias.

Would you consider a 1/2/3/4 year old Porsche that has had any panels repainted is not de valued in any way?

Is any vehicle that has a frontal accident and has been paid 70% of it blue book value to repair on a 1-2 year old vehicle not de valued in any way?
 
You can repair your own vehicle very easily if you own a repair facility, body shop. I've done it more than a few times. The Insurance Co will actually write the check to you, the Insured owner, not the shop.

The question isn't whether or not you repaired it, the question is why would you report it. Apparently the insurance co reports it?
 
Where was it repainted? What makes you think it’s been repainted? Alittle bit of orange peel is within OE spec. Drips would be a guarantee repaint. So would the textured finished of body filler. Would like to see photos if you can post them.

its not uncommon for bumpers and hood/front fender to be repainted due to rock chips or scratches. In fact, even a door or two being repainted is nothing uncommon in used cars. Dents, dings, sun damage, etc.

as long as the body hardware(screws, clips, bolts) are all straight and intact it was probably never in an accident and rather just re painted to look better. You can’t really blame the seller on that because they did you a favor by making it look better lol.

paint depth gauges don’t really work on a lot of these euro cars becuase they only work on ferrous metal. A lot of the front ends of modern Mercedes is aluminum. And the bumper is plastic.
 
some part ordering systems sell data to carfax/auto check. You buy some structural parts off of said system, and boom your car shows structural damage.
Find that hard to believe. How would they know what car you were buying the parts for? I buy parts by part number or by year/make/model. No way they could know what specific car it's going into.
 
Find that hard to believe. How would they know what car you were buying the parts for? I buy parts by part number or by year/make/model. No way they could know what specific car it's going into.
Almost every dealer parts department requires VIN now. Not for the sole purpose of collecting accident data but to find the correct parts since there’s so many variations.

I suppose if you want to take some time trying to find parts online and waiting for shipping, you can get past this. But as a body shop I cannot wait 1-2 weeks ETA for parts that are in stock locally.

I have done a few cars that had accidents with no reports. Did not go thru insurance. Paid cash. I didn’t report. Only traceable thing I did was buy parts with the vin lol.
 
I have done a few cars that had accidents with no reports. Did not go thru insurance. Paid cash. I didn’t report. Only traceable thing I did was buy parts with the vin lol.
So what does the Carfax say? Usually I see something like, Accident report; Damage reported to right front of car. Vehicle functional. Airbag did not deploy. What could they report just from the VIN?
 
The question isn't whether or not you repaired it, the question is why would you report it. Apparently the insurance co reports it?
Yes, the insurance Co reports it. In my day, shops did not report, not their responsibility.
some part ordering systems sell data to carfax/auto check. You buy some structural parts off of said system, and boom your car shows structural damage. I have a body shop that’s how I know lol.
Never heard of that, but as I mentioned I have been retired for many years thank goodness! Work sucks!

When I did own a shop, some dealers did require a vin# but I usually figured it was because they switched parts venders during the production year, and some use it to identify the option levels. GM and Ford are Notorious for requesting vin #'s
 
So what does the Carfax say? Usually I see something like, Accident report; Damage reported to right front of car. Vehicle functional. Airbag did not deploy. What could they report just from the VIN?

it will be very vague “accident reported” without any sort of description. Assuming you buy enough parts it would probably generate a damage diagram. Auto check will just show structural damage and the date the parts were purchased. I have brought and sold a few cars that were clean title with absolutely no signs of any major accident show structural on auto check/carfax.
 
Yes, the insurance Co reports it. In my day, shops did not report, not their responsibility.

Never heard of that, but as I mentioned I have been retired for many years thank goodness! Work sucks!

When I did own a shop, some dealers did require a vin# but I usually figured it was because they switched parts venders during the production year, and some use it to identify the option levels. GM and Ford are Notorious for requesting vin #'s

yup it’s something new that I didn’t notice until recently. I just repaired a new Audi Q8. Customer hit black ice. Nothing reported. But because it’s a new model I had to order parts by vin(plus it’s an Audi and there’s multiple variations of the same part). Ordered a crash bar, bumper cover, grille, intercooler, bunch of body clips. And now auto check shows structural lol.
 
it will be very vague “accident reported” without any sort of description. Assuming you buy enough parts it would probably generate a damage diagram. Auto check will just show structural damage and the date the parts were purchased. I have brought and sold a few cars that were clean title with absolutely no signs of any major accident show structural on auto check/carfax.
On the few cars I've bought with unproven damage, I've called out Carfax and AutoCheck about it, and they have deleted the record. Without an accident or police report, they have no proof of damage. If this happens often, I'd order parts with the last few digits in the VIN different.
 
Where was it repainted? What makes you think it’s been repainted? Alittle bit of orange peel is within OE spec. Drips would be a guarantee repaint. So would the textured finished of body filler. Would like to see photos if you can post them.

its not uncommon for bumpers and hood/front fender to be repainted due to rock chips or scratches. In fact, even a door or two being repainted is nothing uncommon in used cars. Dents, dings, sun damage, etc.

as long as the body hardware(screws, clips, bolts) are all straight and intact it was probably never in an accident and rather just re painted to look better. You can’t really blame the seller on that because they did you a favor by making it look better lol.

paint depth gauges don’t really work on a lot of these euro cars becuase they only work on ferrous metal. A lot of the front ends of modern Mercedes is aluminum. And the bumper is plastic.
It was the hood that was painted. There are spots on the hood where it looks like a small bubble burs or chip indentions are filled with new paint.I considered a hailstorm but the top shows no signs. You can feel overspray on the front fenders but can’t see it. It’s a good paint job except for the dirt/bubble spots. With the hood up there are no signs of a paint job.
 
A good way to tell if a car was repainted is to check for over-spray lines in the door jams, and in the hood and trunk openings. Door jams will generally never get painted unless the whole car is over-going a color change, so if you look really closely you'll notice the over-spray if it's there.
 
It was the hood that was painted. There are spots on the hood where it looks like a small bubble burs or chip indentions are filled with new paint.I considered a hailstorm but the top shows no signs. You can feel overspray on the front fenders but can’t see it. It’s a good paint job except for the dirt/bubble spots. With the hood up there are no signs of a paint job.

I think it's safe to say it was repainted due to rock chips. Possibly even just re-cleared seeing how you can only feel the overspray on the fenders. Is there still a VIN number on the hood? Replacement hoods rarely have VIN/OE stickers and they also rarely have the correct paint pattern on the underside. They always seem look less like a robot painted it.
 
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