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Sometimes small claims court delivers a big eye-opener.

Did you know, for instance, that “brand new” car you’re buying might have sustained minor damage, been repaired and put back on the showroom floor?

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Diane Lefrançois sure didn’t.

It’s an older case, but it took forever to wind its way through the court, arrive on my desk, get lost on my desk, then pop up again last week. But the buyer-beware caution has not lost its currency.

In December 2011, Lefrançois spotted a Chrysler convertible at Ottawa Chrysler Dodge in the east end. “It was love at first sight,” court was later told. A week later, she was putting down $41,627 for the vehicle, including $3,435 for an extended warranty.

She was told the car was new, though it was near the end of the model season. The odometer read 242 km. It did not have a single blemish and the evidence was that she intended to keep it that way.

About nine months later, she met her partner at a Tim Hortons, where a strange thing happened. She accidentally bumped into his vehicle, leaving “knife-like” scratches on the bumper. She tried but failed to repair the scratches herself, then took the car to a body shop.