u think my car is junk?
 

I crashed my car a while ago, and finally got it back. When I went to check on it at the body shop, the guy told me he wanted to show me something. They had the front end apart and he showed me how the radiator supports had been replaced along with the bumper and other parts and there were new ****ty welds all over the front end. Basically the front end of the car was destroyed before I bought it. This also doesnt come up on a car fax report.

A while back (before I banged it up) I had tried to install a tri-ax shifter but I couldnt get it in becase the transmission didnt line up with the hole in the console (I couldnt get at the bolts).

When the body shop measured the frame and everything to make sure it was aligned properly, they noticed the engine was twisted. They moved everything back into place and did a nice job with the car. They said from the way the engine was twisted and the angle of impact I hit at, it was all previous damage. So now that I have it back, I've installed the tri-ax because the transmission lines up properly with the hole in the center console.

My question is what could this have done to the rest of the car? I would think the entire drive train would be messed up if the engine was hit in a colision and pushed back and twisted. The car seems to run ok, but I get a weird grind at really low rpm sometimes. Im thinking its time to trade it in for a lightning....

RE: u think my car is junk?
 

Ya i wouuld try and get rid of it. From the sound of it sounds like that car was in a MAJOR accident. How bad was the crash you got into?

RE: u think my car is junk?
 

Um, first - why didn't the guy bother telling you before all this happened?

Regardless, I'd do what you can to get out of that car and into something else that hasn't been absolutely violated.

I bought a wrecked 02 GT, was 100% oblivious to the damage. Everything checked out alright so far though. It's got a real nice paint job too lol.

RE: u think my car is junk?
 

My sister just bought a '02 GT from a dealership in GA and after they had it for a day they heard a poping noise from the front end... so they took it to their mechanic and come to find out it was in a pretty bad accident and a lot of the stuff on the front end (to include some suspension stuff my brother in law said) was all welded back together, and a shi**y weld at that. So now they are going to take it back and tell the dealer they are going to sue the piss out of them bcause they signed a promisary note along with a copy of a carfax that it had never been wrecked and it had the true milage on the odometer.

I cant wait to see how that turns out!

RE: u think my car is junk?
 

Goodluck, it's a lengthy process.

I went through all of that with my dealership. I decided in the long run, the money I'd spend in court would be equal to that I'd lose on my trade in, only to find out the repairs made were really good and out of the 5 places I had appraise it, only 1 found the repair work and eventually he offered me book value anyways.

RE: u think my car is junk?
 

Carfax supposedly has a 100% buy back guarantee* if something like that does not show up on a carfax report. I've found not to trust the reports however. My brothers truck got rear-ended and hit in the side, both required significant repairs, especially the rear-ending incident. Neither of the wrecks were in a carfax report.

*Come to find out, their guarantee only covers "Total Loss Accidents." Wouldn't a total loss accident be obvious?

Don't trust a carfax report for everything, they are good for flood/fire/lemon laws and "total losses", and it gives you a good owner history of the car, but other than that they have no obligation to report any small accidents that could have messed up the car significantly like yours.

RE: u think my car is junk?
 

Your car could have been totalled, as long as you take it to an "under the table" mechanic, or do it yourself, carfax would never know thats the problem.

RE: u think my car is junk?
 

After I wrecked Joes honda (when we was younger) we went to the car lot to pick out a new car. We found a 90 or 91 nissan 240SX. SO sweet. It was pained black and it was so pretty. Well about 2 days later it died, we found out that the car has been in water before. The whole bottom end of the car was rusted including the inside of the fuel tank. Carfax didnt show anything up and the car lot refused to help us. We didnt find out about the lemon law until the 30 days already passed. So we got screwed!!

RE: u think my car is junk?
 

Sorry you even have to deal with this.[&o]

RE: u think my car is junk?
 

You should look to get rid of it man. From here it's just going to get worse, girlfriend's bro is having the same problem with his escalade and it's not getting better. I highly doubt it would show up on carfax because they suck! Also, grinding was never a good sign for me with my older cars.

Good Luck!