Hello all.

To mods - i'm not sure where I should have posted this, but hopefully it'll get moved to the right section if this is not the place.

To members - took my car to a bodyshop for some minor repairs and they said the entire car was repainted. I'm the second owner and before buying the car, I ran it thru CarFax and it came up clean. There were few minor scratches on the the left side of the car when I got it but the right side was in good condition. Owner before me had it for two years and it you could see small bits here and there from wear and tear during those years.

So the first thing that came into my mind when I heard the car was completely repainted was a case study I did few years back in college. If you're interested, here's the article on that The BMW vs Gore "Paint Job" Case. Cliffs: BMW repainted damaged cars (which were scratched during delivery) and would sell them like new.

In my case, the bodyshop told me that the entire car was repainted before and whoever did that - did a sucky job. The paint will start to fade soon since the repaint was not as good as the original manufacturing process.

My question is: how can I find out if the car was repainted before it was sold as new? Dealerships must keep track record of such things, but I doubt they'll give it up willingly. Or should I call the corporate and see if they'll be able to help?

Thanks!

 

I called corporate when I found my G, but before I bought it. I was concerned about possible oil-consumption issues and when I called, they informed me that they indeed had records of a previous owner complaining about oil consumption and provided me with the local dealership that handled the issue. I then called the local dealership and voiced my concern about the issue. They immediately offered to fax me their entire service history of the vehicle. If I were you, I'd try something similar. Good luck!

 

"Main" dealerships don't paint cars, when they receive a trade in they keep it the way it is and don't mess with it.(or at least thats what i was told by a rep) But small dealers get most of their cars off auction and they fix things up and do repaint, etc. My best bet to find if it was repainted is to go back to the dealer and ask, and see if you can get a number of the previous owner idk.

 

You can't trust CarFax. It's a good resource to have, but even if it comes up clean you should go over it with a comb yourself to check for repairs. Example: my old Lexus SC was resprayed black but there was never any indication on CarFax or AutoCheck about a single accident.

It's possible the original owner, NOT the dealership, of your car had it resprayed for whatever reason, and the body shop and/or insurance company did not file a report under the VIN number.

 

my car was painted over on teh bumper and hood... but just those areas because ofthe wear and tear

 

It probably wasn't even repainted..Infiniti paint SUCKS, so what they're seeing is probably just OEM paint. Unless they can actually see where it was painted with clear differences and not just going by the condition/quality of the paint I would say it was not repainted.

 

^yea howd they kno it was repainted jus by looking? is the color diff or something?