OK...I need some help. We are in the process of turing in a lease. The pay off is basically more than what the car is worth.
Here is the problem...........We went to a dealership last nite and looked at a Kia Amanti. Took the car for a test drive and liked it. Haggled a while about payments. By this time it was closing time and the sales manager says " Go ahead and take the car home for the night and see what you think." Ok..we took the car for the nite. I called the guy this morning and wanted to know what was going on, he told me then that most of the banks were already closed and go ahead and keep the car until monday....We thought this was great. We went some place tonite and hubby was looking thru the glove box and came across a rental car paper, not for this car but for a totally different one. To go back a minute here so this makes sense, the car is a 2007 with almost 14,000 miles on it. The sales manager tells us that the miles are from test driving and one of the employees driving an hour to work and back with it every day. Well after finding this rental paper and thinking about the miles, we signed up with a site to check the title history ect. WELL.... The car was a rental car and the car was also in an accident. The dealer did not tell us this. Did he have to by law? Needless to say at this point I will NOT buy a car from him!!!! I want to know if what he done was legally wrong or just morally wrong? Either way I am big time pissed!!
Sorry so long but does anyone have any info? I am in Michigan.
We have not signed any papers with him at this point.

Contact these people:

Michigan Department of Attorney General
525 West Ottawa Street, 7th Floor
Lansing, MI 48913
(517) 373-1140
(517) 335-1935 FAX
www.ag.state.mi.us

Better Business Bureau
30555 Southfield Road, Suite 200
Southfield, MI 48076
(248) 644-9100
(248) 644-5026 FAX
www.detroit.bbb.org

Before you do, write out what you have to say, with days and dates. Have a printout of the report you got from the automobile history site. Be calm and professional. (It won't change the law, but will get you faster attention if any laws were broken.)

Thanks you ...Guess you know who I will be on the phone with first thing monday! Hope they are open with new yrs eve and all. Don't really matter in the long run I guess because I am not going to buy a car from these people after this. I just know that a lot of people would have not known that they could look things like that up or would not have thought about it. The only reason it dawned on us to do it was because of the paper that we found in the glove box. Let me tell you..I paid $30 for this site and it was worth every last penny at this point! I recomend it to anyone buying used cars. My hubby went back to the dealerships site and got some VIN numbers off of used cars and you guessed it all from auctions. That is really not the part that bothered me because I know that is how the get a lot of thier used cars, it was the fact that this car has been wrecked and I have no idea how bad and here the guy gives it to me to cart my kids around in.....I hate dishonest people. I could live with the used to be rental car thing but not the accident.

It's good you did research on it, and more people need to be careful. You'll have a big surprise for them tomorrow. I got screwed once by paying a car dealer for a car title/registration that wasn't clear.

Car dealers gained the title of being crooks long ago.

BRAVO for doing research. doing reserch before hand is better still. then you have playing terms that they cannot bypass. although they will try not all car dealers are crooks i have had one that pretty darn good to me. if i had a problem with the car he would get me anouther one or if I WANTED to fix that one he would take care of it. a real honest guy probaly that last one ill ever see or meet

By law the dealer did not have to tell you it was a rental car or it had been in an accident...at this point in the negotiations.

If you had purchased the car and he did not disclose this information, that is a different matter.

OTOH, pay cash for the best car you can afford. Save those car payments and trade up, always paying cash.