Hurricane Helene: Flooded, damaged cars could end up being sold states away

ATLANTA — Vehicles damaged by Helene could soon end up for sale at metro Atlanta used car dealerships.

Often cars with lasting damage get shipped many states away to unsuspecting buyers.

They can be cleaned up and made to look good but with major problems lurking under the hood.

Carfax estimates even before Helene hit, there were 543,000 flood-damaged cars on the road.

7,000 of those are here in Georgia.

“The issue becomes what happens to these cars after the storm is over, a lot of these cars will be cleaned up. They’ll be moved across the country and be sold to unsuspecting consumers who don’t realize that these cars are literally rotting from the inside out,’ said Patrick Olsen, editor-in-chief of Carfax.

To protect yourself, you can run any car through the Carfax free flood check.

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Channel 2 Investigates has been reporting that many troubled cars end up with clean titles from the state of Texas.

In 2020, Channel 2 consumer investigator Justin Gray told the story of one Toyota 4Runner that has changed hands at least seven times in five years in five states.

The whole time it had a critical safety defect that customers never knew about: It is missing side-curtain airbags.

Gray also reported on a Tesla Model 3 with more than $34,000 in damage that was repaired, but this was not indicated in the car’s accident history.

Both cars were titled in Texas and then sold elsewhere. Texas law has a 100% “total-loss threshold.”

Translation: Unless the repair cost is more than what the car is worth, the title remains original and conceals the history of cars that were involved in serious accidents.

And in Georgia, there is no lemon law for used vehicles.

Auto fraud experts say you can also research a car’s history by checking the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System — or NMVTIS — report.

For a small fee, it will list major accidents that might not make it onto a Carfax report.

You should also always have your own independent mechanic check out a used car before purchase.

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