Buying a Used Car in 2014-A Horror Story

Our parents (my husband's and mine) both told us the same "tips" about buying used cars: 1. always check out the car yourself (looking for obvious damage, with my husband he knows a few things about cars so he can be a better judge than I if something looks "off"). 2. always test drive on the highway (a lot of vehicles make funky noises when they go faster then 100kph). 3. if you offer the dealer cash they'll give you a better deal. Accomplishing numbers 1 and 2 wasn't that difficult, but neither identified serious issues in one SUV. The third tip was totally, 100% wrong when car shopping nowadays. Dealerships don't want your cash, they want your cash long-term. If we bought our SUV outright we would have faced hundreds of dollars in penalites for buying it that way. The dealership would much rather have us finanace for a couple of months, then pay off the SUV (two different dealerships told us this same information). That way they get their cut from the banks they deal with in addition to the huge mark-up on their cars. Dealerships price their cars based on the model, make, amount of KMs and year of the car. That is it. I think a lot of consumers would think that dealerships look at the overall condition of a car, its history, recent repairs, etc. Nope. If it factors at all, it makes very little difference in the price. So, you can have a 2012 SUV with a history of being in the shop for service every six months and another that has had only regular maintenance and they can be priced exactly the same. And the consumer, unless they scream for service histories and carfaxes, are not told any of the history of a car. The consumer can be left with a lemon (at an audi price) and think they have a great car. The problem I have with this isn't so much how much the dealerships rip off their customers, but rather its the fact they don't care if they are selling a car that has been reported to have "difficulty turning left at times" to a family with children. Imagine the surprise when a mother tries to make a left turn in a busy intersection with her children in the back and-oops-the car won't turn left. At best its a huge inconvience, at the worst, a life-threatening situation. My point is this. As consumers, we can feel empowered by gathering the history of a SUV, but if the car has been in an accident and that accident was covered under warranty and cost less than $3000, the consumer will probably never know it happened. I don't know about you, but I'd like to know (regardless if an accident is considered minor or major) that the car/SUV whatever has been in an accident. That way I can decide if I want the vehicle. I would also argue vehicles should be priced according to their history, not just the dealership-favoring factors. I can go into a clothing store and be made aware a button is missing from a shirt and get a discount for the missing button. If I buy a refurbished computer from Best Buy they tell me it is refurbished and I can decide if I want the risk or not. I also get a discount because of the computer's history. Why can't I have the same level of service for items that cost less than $1000 for something I'm shelling out $15,000 for? Where is the logic in that? So, my husband and I were all set to go home with our new-to-us 2012 Kia Sorento SUV. When we drove it off the lot the instrument cluster (all of the dials) were dead. We returned it and demanded all of the history on the SUV. Aside from an accident they never told us about, that SUV had the front wheel axle replaced, the driver's window replaced three times, the windshield replaced, had trouble turning left, the AC was an issue, etc. Clearly this 2-year old car had issues. We demanded a refund. They refused and tried to push other SUVs on us. We humored them but eventually threatened going to the service manager's boss and/or the media. They refunded our money and we went to another dealership. We found an SUV we like (reading all of the history-only 2 pages this time, as opposed to 16!) and after some financing negotiations are finally picking it up today. All said and done, it took us over 3 weeks to buy this SUV. Both my husband and I lost several nights of sleep due to stress (with the first SUV) and have had to explain to our child why "the nice man wanted to sell us an unsafe car." We had the most money in our lives to buy a car and this was the most stress-by far-we have ever had buying a car! The experience sucked any joy at all in buying a new-to-us SUV. I am terrified this SUV (even though I know it is okay) will have some major problem right off the bat after our last experience. It just shouldn't be this way. I have written to all levels of government to try and push for FULL disclosure by dearships on all vehicles, regardless of the cost of previous damage (most dealerships will tell you they won't sell cars with more than $3500 of damage recorded on it-but, as we found out, dealers have ways of fudging accident reports, especially if the previous owners were "friends or even family members" of the dealership owner and had work done for free at the service bay).