Tesla Sold Me A Wrecked M3 As New

[durbinlc]

I have been looking into upgrading my 2021 Model 3 SR+ to a Model Y. So I have been shopping my car around on the Carvana's, Vroom's of the world. My brother has the same car I do and was getting offers of 46-49k for his. So when I got mine back at 23k I was surprised. One of them contacted me stating they were not interested in buying my car because it had been in an accident where multiple airbags had been deployed. They also sent me the Carfax for it. Sure enough it showed an accident with multiple airbag deployed and that hit had hit a building on 2/27/21 and repairs were made 5/27/21. Only problem is...I took delivery from Tesla on June 10, 2021, 3.5 months after this accident.

When I bought the car they told me it had very minimal miles (Less than 500), but stayed that they were going to sell it to me as a new car but provide me a $1,700 discount for the miles driven. On my loan paperwork, the vehicle is marked as new. So I said ok and made sure to look very closely at delivery (In Houston, TX) and it was beautiful. So it appears they have sold me a car that had wrecked into a wall and had airbags blow, which has given me a 20k hit on the value. Before I connected the dots I put in a request with Carfax to have it removed because I thought it was obviously an error. I am still waiting to hear back from Carfax, but I have also sent an email to the Tesla Disputes email address detailing everything.

I have had no issues with the car and love it, I want to upgrade to a Model Y because my kids are getting a little bigger. My plan was to take my equity in the car and put it towards a Model Y. So we will see what happens, but it has definitely left a sour taste in my mouth.

Has anyone else experienced something like this? If so, how long should I expect it to take before Tesla reaches out to me from Resolutions? Its been over 24 hours now and would think something like this is deserving of elevated attention. Thanks!

 

[theocguy]

have you considered to contact a lawyer to handle this issue?

 

[durbinlc]

have you considered to contact a lawyer to handle this issue?

That is definitely something I am considering. According to my Order Agreement it lists that I give it 60 days to find a resolution before taking it to an independent arbitration. Below that it says I can choose small claims court as well. I am in Texas and unfamiliar with what the maximum would be there. If I am not mistaken, there are Attorneys that specialize in Diminished Value, so I have to do some homework and find out the best route to take. I was going to give Tesla the chance to make it right, but I also wonder if reaching out to attorney anyway.

 

[glide]

When I bought the car they told me it had very minimal miles (Less than 500), but stayed that they were going to sell it to me as a new car but provide me a $1,700 discount for the miles driven

Bro, that’s a used car.

Even so, super shady of them to sell something that had been repaired without disclosing. I would be furious.

 

[Snigle]

A very similar situation also happened to me! I had a M3LR on order and while waiting for it to be built an SA texted me that they had a 'new' inventory car that matched my specs they could give me. I was told it was 'new' but had 40 miles on the odometer.. they provided a slight discount for the milage.

I only found out it was 'used' when I took the MCO Tesla sent me weeks after having the car and went to register it with my DMV. My DMV rejected the MCO because the car was already registered in another state!

Tesla originally said they would give me a discount to keep the current car, but then a few weeks later they said the only resolution was a buy back. I think I lucked out because who knows what all happen to my 'new' car that actually was 'used'. Now after reading your post I'm glad they forced me to return it. It seemed super shady that they could not explain to me what happened or how they did not know the car they provided to me was previously registered.

Sorry you have to go through this, OP. You should ask Tesla to buy back the car from you.. they may refund you the full purchase price you paid if they screwed up and misrepresented the condition of the vehicle.

 

[Need]

Bro, that’s a used car.

Even so, super shady of them to sell something that had been repaired without disclosing. I would be furious.

I think dealerships are allowed to make repairs due to damage done in transportation without tell the new owner. But I think those repairs would not have been reported to Carfax. I am thinking they sold OP a demo car. Some one test drove it into a building and they claimed insurance and fixed it and sold it to OP as new. I think they are allowed to sell it as new if no one bought it before.

 

[Snigle]

Oh, and one thing I forgot to mention-- it took business resolutions about 2 weeks to initially get back to me after I brought my issue to their attention. You may be waiting a while yet if you only just contacted them 24 hours ago.

 

[durbinlc]

Bro, that’s a used car.

Even so, super shady of them to sell something that had been repaired without disclosing. I would be furious.

Yeah it’s even marked as a new car on my loan paperwork.

 

[durbinlc]

A very similar situation also happened to me! I had a M3LR on order and while waiting for it to be built an SA texted me that they had a 'new' inventory car that matched my specs they could give me. I was told it was 'new' but had 40 miles on the odometer.. they provided a slight discount for the milage.

I only found out it was 'used' when I took the MCO Tesla sent me weeks after having the car and went to register it with my DMV. My DMV rejected the MCO because the car was already registered in another state!

Tesla originally said they would give me a discount to keep the current car, but then a few weeks later they said the only resolution was a buy back. I think I lucked out because who knows what all happen to my 'new' car that actually was 'used'. Now after reading your post I'm glad they forced me to return it. It seemed super shady that they could not explain to me what happened or how they did not know the car they provided to me was previously registered.

Sorry you have to go through this, OP. You should ask Tesla to buy back the car from you.. they may refund you the full purchase price you paid if they screwed up and misrepresented the condition of the vehicle.

Here is the where my major question lies. I bought the car for ~$42k. I owe about 30k on it. The carvana, vroom sites are in the $46-$48k range. So if I undo the loan I would be losing an additional $4-6k in market value on it. Lol. It’s just a giant mess.

 

[Golf8621204]

You definitely have to get a lawyer involved. This is quite serious and I suspect not something you can handle on your own. You need to find out the particular legalities of selling a car as NEW, when in fact, it had been wrecked sometime after going through production, but before you took delivery. Probably had an accident at Fremont or during the transport process. Obviously the red flag was the mileage, although you unfortunately didn't pick up on it at the time. With that said in this business transaction, I don't know whether Tesla had to disclose it or not since all repairs were made and the car functioned properly. I suspect they did, because it is reasonable to believe a brand new vehicle would never have been in an accident and likely a disclosure form should have been procured by Tesla and agreed to and signed by you, however not 100% on that. Go the lawyer route.

 

[durbinlc]

Oh, and one thing I forgot to mention-- it took business resolutions about 2 weeks to initially get back to me after I brought my issue to their attention. You may be waiting a while yet if you only just contacted them 24 hours ago.

That’s great. Lol

 

[durbinlc]

I think dealerships are allowed to make repairs due to damage done in transportation without tell the new owner. But I think those repairs would not have been reported to Carfax. I am thinking they sold OP a demo car. Some one test drove it into a building and they claimed insurance and fixed it and sold it to OP as new. I think they are allowed to sell it as new if no one bought it before.

Exactly what I think happened.

 

[durbinlc]

You definitely have to get a lawyer involved. This is quite serious and I suspect not something you can handle on your own. You need to find out the particular legalities of selling a car as NEW, when in fact, it had been wrecked sometime after going through production, but before you took delivery. Probably had an accident at Fremont or during the transport process. Obviously the red flag was the mileage, although you unfortunately didn't pick up on it at the time. With that said in this business transaction, I don't know whether Tesla had to disclose it or not since all repairs were made and the car functioned properly. I suspect they did, because it is reasonable to believe a brand new vehicle would never have been in an accident and likely a disclosure form should have been procured by Tesla and agreed to and signed by you, however not 100% on that. Go the lawyer route.

Thanks. The longer I think about it I am thinking this is the way. I love Tesla and my car, but I just want them to make it right. All I wanted to do was take the equity and flip it into a Model Y for my kids getting bigger.

 

[DrDabbles]

Don't waste your time on anything else. Contact a lawyer, get your money for that car back, it is illegal to sell a used car as new and it is illegal to sell a wrecked car as new.

 

[Snigle]

I agree about contacting the lawyer. My situation has been ongoing for about 4 months and I am still due a small refund from Tesla, which I am told may take another month or two to for them to process. If I had contacted a lawyer to begin with the process honestly might have moved faster.

Also in my situation I had already paid sales tax to my state for the car that I could not register. I asked Tesla to refund that to me, and they first said "yes" then at the last moment changed their mind and removed it from the buyback agreement because "Tesla can only refund monies paid to Tesla, not to your DMV". In the end I was able to get the sales tax back as Tesla wrote a notarized "statement of fact" for my DMV explaining due to a "miscommunication" I was provided an "incorrect vehicle".

I would not count on Tesla voluntarily refunding you a dime more than you originally sent to them. What they may be willing to do however is sell you a M3 or MY at the same price as when you ordered your last one.

This process has been slow, painful, and required me to follow up multiple times at each step of the way. I hate knowing that I will likely have to follow up again for my remaining refund in a couple of weeks.. because even though they say it is coming I have little hope.

 

[electricar]

Carfax makes lots of mistakes - that is most likely what happened here. For the car to be sold as new it has to sold on an Manufacturers Statement of Origin and if it was wrecked on a demo the Borrowed Car Agreement signed by the person test driving would require the driver's insurance company to pay Tesla directly and they certainly wouldn't then take it to a body shop for a repair and then report the repair to Carfax. If, however, the situation that Snigle had is what happened to you Tesla will indeed buy the car back. No big rush to get a lawyer - let it play out - it unlikely that Tesla's legal team would do something stupid here.

 

[Brou]

Yeah it’s even marked as a new car on my loan paperwork.

That won't be enough ammunition. Lenders can define "new" however they like. For example, my credit union defines new cars as anything with less than 7500 miles and no more than one calendar year old.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Inventory cars being damaged, repaired, and sold by new is quite common (and has little to no impact on value), but something with airbag deployment and then reported to Carfax (which craters the value) does not typically happen. The record should be clean. I would probably clarify with both Tesla and Carfax to make sure if there isn't a mistake. If this goes nowhere, a lawyer may need to be involved as others mentioned.

 

[JoePed]

I have been looking into upgrading my 2021 Model 3 SR+ to a Model Y. So I have been shopping my car around on the Carvana's, Vroom's of the world. My brother has the same car I do and was getting offers of 46-49k for his. So when I got mine back at 23k I was surprised. One of them contacted me stating they were not interested in buying my car because it had been in an accident where multiple airbags had been deployed. They also sent me the Carfax for it. Sure enough it showed an accident with multiple airbag deployed and that hit had hit a building on 2/27/21 and repairs were made 5/27/21. Only problem is...I took delivery from Tesla on June 10, 2021, 3.5 months after this accident.

When I bought the car they told me it had very minimal miles (Less than 500), but stayed that they were going to sell it to me as a new car but provide me a $1,700 discount for the miles driven. On my loan paperwork, the vehicle is marked as new. So I said ok and made sure to look very closely at delivery (In Houston, TX) and it was beautiful. So it appears they have sold me a car that had wrecked into a wall and had airbags blow, which has given me a 20k hit on the value. Before I connected the dots I put in a request with Carfax to have it removed because I thought it was obviously an error. I am still waiting to hear back from Carfax, but I have also sent an email to the Tesla Disputes email address detailing everything.

I have had no issues with the car and love it, I want to upgrade to a Model Y because my kids are getting a little bigger. My plan was to take my equity in the car and put it towards a Model Y. So we will see what happens, but it has definitely left a sour taste in my mouth.

Has anyone else experienced something like this? If so, how long should I expect it to take before Tesla reaches out to me from Resolutions? Its been over 24 hours now and would think something like this is deserving of elevated attention. Thanks!

That is total crap and frankly fraudulent. I would consider a good lawyer, you might end up with a new Model Y and a new PLAID. Consumer laws are on your side, especially when it comes to disclosures….please keep us updated on this.

 

[glide]

Yeah it’s even marked as a new car on my loan paperwork.

A car with 1700 miles isn’t new.

I get that it’s a demo vehicle and hasn’t been titled, but still…it’s a used car.