dented front on a honda --- is it okay to buy?

my friend wants to sell me her car. it's a honda. but there's a big dent in the front. she told me that it only costs 2-3 hundred$$ to fix.

before i asked her how much she wanted, i told her it's worth about 900 or 1200.

she said that last year someone offered her 7,000 bucks. i didn't think of it at the time, but now i am thinking that the dent is from a car accident and could have damaged the frame.

it's pretty big. it's kind of scary big. she says that her car is worth thousands. but i don't. i told her to go to a mechanic for an evaluation and he'll say how much the car is worth...

am i right to be worried about structural damage from a dent from an accident?

StephenWeinstein

Yes and no. You should worry about frame/structural damage, but not because of the dent.

You should be worried about frame damage in any used car.

Even if there was no dent, there could be frame damage, because it is possible to fix the dent (or replace the dented part) without fixing the structural damage to the frame.

You should not buy the car, because buying cars from friends who think the cars are worth more than you do is a bad idea. Even if there is no structural damage, if anything unrelated goes wrong with the car, you will feel she ripped you off, and that will ruin the friendship.

UCANTCME

Take the vehicle to any body shop and get a free and complete estimate on the repairs and take that off the blue book price unless the car is extremely damaged then just tell her no thank you.

http://www.kbb.com

oklatom

Stop by the local body shop and ask for a quick estimate. Then decide.

My advice....never buy from a friend.

sgoldperson

We'd need a year and we'd need a picture to see what the damage looks like. I can't tell what a dent looks like from you saying that. Although I highly doubt that someone offered her $7000. I'll admit Honda keeps it's value, but still doubt that it was that good of an offer.

Stimpson Cat

You probably won't get a very helpful answer unless you provide information such as the model and year of the car and provide some way for others to see the damage such as few photos posted to a free photo sharing site that you can post links to.
Unfortunately, "kind of scary big" is a really subjective term and doesn't actually tell anyone much about the specific damage or provide any way to even estimate a ballpark figure for repair costs.

Enter Your Message or Comment

User Name:
User Email:
Post a comment: