Dealer sells car without a safety inspection, conceals frame damage –
Has to pay 3 times sales price

Mr. S went to Emotors, a used car dealer in Fairfax County. He saw a Toyota Land Cruiser he liked, and bought it for $7,000. After he paid for the car, the dealer told him that he could not take the car that day, as the title was offsite. He was told to come back two days later, on a Monday. Mr. S did not notice at the time that there was no Virginia Safety Inspection sticker on the car. Under Virginia law, a car dealer has to take any car it acquires in for a state Safety Inspection. If it cannot pass a safety inspection, the dealer has to tell any purchaser why it cannot pass.

He came back two days later, and picked up the car. Unknown to him, the dealer took that time to get the car inspection for a Virginia safety inspection – and the car had failed the safety inspection because the frame was so rusted through the car was a death trap. The dealer then scraped the failed safety inspection sticker off the car, and delivered it to Mr. S. They did not tell Mr. S that the car had failed a safety inspection or that the frame was compromised.

A few days later, Mr. S took the car to another dealer for routine servicing. He found out that they could not even put the car on a rack without risk of the frame collapsing. The cost of repairing the frame would be more than the price of the car. Mr. S then investigated the inspection history, and found out that it had failed a safety inspection. He contacted the dealer and demanded that they take the car back and unwind the deal. The dealer refused.

Mr. S sued the dealer. After hearing the evidence, the Court tripled Mr. S’ damages, and awarded him over $21,000, plus all of his attorney fees in the amount of $10,000.