Quote:
Originally Posted by Dylans47
My 2023 GR86 is coming in shortly and all this talk is making me second guess the possible purchase, especially because I want to track worry free.
Lets say the short block needs replacing, what happens to the carfax or paper trail? Would it be branded "rebuilt" title? Not only would I have to wait months to be get the car back while the engine is being fixed, but now I have a rebuilt title car which is worth a considerable amount less.
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a number of things to unpack here. lots of fear.
so first, carfax:
anything can and will happen with a carfax. because carfax is like your brothers ex-girlfriends step fathers sisters cousin telling you something factual about your new wife that lived on the other side of the country from them. there is nothing about carfax is that is legally binding. they're really just a crappy search engine for vehicle history. think less google search, more internet explorer search. the fact that anyone trusts them more than a used car salesman with a gold chain is more a testament to their marketing skills than their database collection skills. carfax has absolutely no official standing within any governing body anywhere in the world. they are an information supplier. and one that makes very clear what an individual chooses to do with the information they supply is not their responsibility:
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/trust...8#.UbOr4_nrxyU
second, 'rebuilt' titles:
a rebuilt title occurs within the governing process of vehicle registration. for a vehicle to be registered as 'rebuilt', the vehicle would have to first be legally 'totaled'.
by 'totaled', it means that the vehicle was damaged, and an insurance agency, after performing an assessment of the damage, has decided to write the vehicle off as a 'total loss' due to the costs and/or liability-of-repair incurred from the damage to the vehicle--the threshold for this varies from state to state, as well as different insurers policies. they issue a pay out for the vehicles market value to the insured person.
from there, the title is branded. the insurance then takes the vehicle and sells it at auction to any entity willing to put a bid in to purchase it. they do this in an effort to offset the costs of the payout. sometimes you can buy your totaled vehicle back at this point as well.
from there, that entity takes the vehicle and sometimes will fix the damage the insurance company didn't want to. at that point, they get the vehicle re-certified for road use via the local authorities, and it finally receives a rebuilt title designation.
so simply swapping the motor, it's impossible to get a rebuilt title designation. it's also important to remember that this can really only happen when insurance is involved. if one doesn't involve insurance, there is no payout, and unless a local official marks the vehicle as 'unsafe', there will likely never be a branded title either.
what i believe you're looking for is 'diminished value', ie; with the recorded change of the motor, there's a loss of the resale value of the vehicle when compared to the same vehicle without the manufacturing defect that caused the replacement.
i believe that's an entirely separate legal proceeding that you would pursue through typical legal channels against the automaker after the work was performed and noted on the vehicles history.
but all of this worrying before getting the car is just causing grey hairs for no reason. beat the snot out of the car. if it fails within warranty, bring it back, make it toyota/subaru's problem. that's what the warranty is there for. to catch manufacturing defects.