Shiny means nothing in buying used car

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - Superstorm Sandy damaged more than 200,000 vehicles. The owners of those will want to replace their ride soon. Many of those cars will be available on the used car market throughout the US.

So how can you be sure the used car you're looking at buying is reliable and doesn't have hard-to-spot damage?

Target 8 invited a handful of area residents a chance to inspect three vehicles to pick out the one that was in an accident. The three vehicles were parked in a parking lot, and they took their time to find the car that was smashed in the front and the back in a chain reaction crash, then repaired at a body shop.

One Kentwood resident was confident he could pick out the car. He didn't. Only one of the civilian testers picked out the damaged car.

That's what unscrupulous dealers bank on - a buyer's confidence to spot damage without really checking.

"The laws here are plenty strong enough to do what it's supposed to do," said MSP Det. Russell Ammons. "However there's always that element out there that, and it's worth it for some people, to take the risk to do it the wrong way."

Ammons is with SCAR, the Southwest Commercial Auto Recovery unit , a multi-jurisdictional auto theft team made up of detectives from Kalamazoo Public Safety, Kalamazoo Township Police Department and the Michigan State Police that serves Allegan, Berrien, Branch, Calhoun, Cass, Kalamazoo, St. Joseph and Van Buren counties.

SCAR and other experts suggest used car buyers keep these things in mind:

•  Do the seams in the vehicle line up?
•  Do the paint colors match?
•  Is there any paint overspray on other parts in the engine?
•  Are any parts missing or do they look unsymmetrical?
•  Are the emblems all in the right place?

It's even difficult sometimes for experts to spot the damage. "Whoever did these repairs did such a good job that unless I looked at some records to tell me what was damaged, I wouldn't know it was damaged," said Rick Theule of Grand Buick in Grandville. "It looks like a brand new vehicle."

Appearances are misleading, police say. Sporty and shiny doesn't mean much. Det. Ammons said to check the vehicle's crash history through a service like CarFax -- and even then it's not failsafe.

"There is some delay from the time of the processing of the vehicle when it crashed to the time that the information gets onto those websites," Ammons said.

Theule said to not ever buy a vehicle without seeing its electronic history. That and using a reputable dealer are the best systems available to consumers.

Plus, the Secretary of State and police encourage consumers to check a vehicle's CarFax or title before purchase. If a title is green, the vehicle is good to go. If orange, it is a salvage vehicle; and if red, it is a junked vehicle.

In September, Karoush Jamshidi, 58, who ran Import Cars on West KL Avenue in Kalamazoo , was arraigned on five counts of common law fraud -- each a 10-year felony.

A three-month investigation by SCAR found Jamshidi sold vehicles that had been branded as scrap for road use without customers' knowledge, which is illegal in the state of Michigan.

Investigators say Jamshidi bought vehicles with "junk" titles at auctions around the country, would make some minor repairs, then worked with an inspector who declared the car was roadworthy. He was then able to obtain a "drivable" title for the vehicle and sold it.

Police say Jamshidi manipulated the junk titles through insurance companies so the Secretary of State's office wouldn't catch on. The Secretary of State is also investigating several other complaints against the company.

He is accused of using this ruse on at least 21 cars over three years.

His next court date is November 26.

If you think you have purchased a junked car, officials from the Secretary of State encourage you to file a complaint with their office.