What Can You Find At Dealerships?

We performed a mini walk through of a dealership to spot check for signs of repainting.The results are not really surprising to us, but you may be. The dealership was GM dealer with approx 50-60 used cars on the lot.

During our brief walk through we found 5 late model (A Scary 9% ) vehicles that have been repainted to some degree, one we suspect had major repaint work done. Indicating that this vehicle may have been in a collision.

We performed this walk through on a Sunday when the dealership was closed, we couldn’t raise the hood, trunk or open doors, otherwise we may have found more issues.

What’s even more surpsring is that 3 of these vehicles were on their lot as being GM certified. We can’t say that these vehicles were not up to GM standards for a Certified used car but we suspect not.

GM standards are fairly rigid when it comes to certification, it’s not uncommon for dealerships to fudge these standards in order to certify a vehicle. As you can see by our walk through, repaired and or repainted vehicles are not uncommon, even at dealerships.

This 2005 Chevy Classic has paint over spray around the right front fender inner liner and right front park lamp lens. Notice the GM Certified sticker on the windshield.

You can easily tell that this 2004 Chevy truck has been repainted, notice the difference of color shading in the right front fender and the door. We spotted this at first by the paint edge of the inner fender liner.

(Note: This vehicle was not at the same dealership as the others listed)

We were extremly surprised that this 2005 Buick Lesabre was listed as another GM Certified vehicle. We first spotted a piece of masking tape between the left front door and fender. Upon further inspecting we also noticed another piece of tape at the rear bumper area.

Our crash check paint thickness tool indicated that the entire left side of the vehicle has been repainted, perhaps due to a collision. We suspect that if we had been able to raise the hood and open doors we could have found more indications.

We seriously doubt that this vehicle is up to GM standards when selling as a "Certified Used Car"

Dodge Dealership--11/27/2005

Notice the paint run at rear qtr panel--This truck was repainted on the right side. It also had overspray on the inside of both fender liners.

We spotted this small piece of masking tape along the inner fender liner area, upon a closer look we found that this truck had also been repainted.

More Cases To Be Posted Soon