Torque Shop: Red flags to look out for when buying a used car that had an accident repair
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It can be difficult to tell the quality of an accident repair without a professional assessment.
PHOTO: ST FILE
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How do I know that any accident repairs on a used car that I’m keen on buying have been properly done?
This is a bit of a dark art. There are a number of tell-tale signs of inferior repairs, but these are not always glaringly obvious.
Accident repairs vary according to the severity of the crash. It can range from fixing a single body panel to replacing the chassis subframe and the associated body parts.
The best way to assess the quality of post-accident repairs is to send the car for an inspection by a workshop specialising in collision repairs. A full inspection requires raising the car on a hoist to inspect the undercarriage.
If you cannot have the car assessed professionally, then you must look out for the typical blemishes and red flags resulting from shoddy repairs.
The most obvious tell-tale sign of poor workmanship is mismatched paintwork.
Compare adjacent body panels to spot any difference in the paintwork. This should be done in normal daylight. Any variation in shade or colour will suggest an inferior paint job.
Look carefully at door panels from one end of the car to spot waviness along the flanks, which is another obvious sign that finishing work was poorly executed.
You should also compare the body creases that run along the side of the car. Panel beaten repairs on minor dents are not always easy to set right and require skilled workers, which the industry sorely lacks these days. For this reason, many workshops prefer to replace the panel in question, which could be a whole fender or door.
Panel gaps are another area that must be scrutinised. Inconsistent gaps could be due to misaligned installation. More seriously, they can also be because the chassis had been bent and the work to pull it back into shape was either not precise enough or the damage was too severe to salvage.
Stay away from such cars.
A test drive is necessary to determine if the suspension is misaligned, which could be a result of chassis damage. Any difference in steering feel between left and right turns also suggests that serious damage to the set-up caused by collision damage has not been properly rectified.
