Not every accident gets reported to insurance companies, and as a result, even the best vehicle history report may miss a bruise or two. Usually, small parking-lot nudges and fender-benders are no big deal if they’ve been repaired properly and the seller is willing to come clean about the vehicle’s not-so-spotless history. Not everyone’s honest when it comes to selling a used vehicle, though. The good news is you can protect yourself from buying a problem vehicle with these three easy ways to tell if the car has been in an accident. Hop the jump for a look.

One of the easiest ways to find out if the used car you’re interested in has been through the body shop is to look at the paint. If there are different shades of the same color on the car, odds are there’s been some kind of body work in the car’s past. If you can, look at the car in multiple types of light – bright daylight, dusk and street lamps. Different colors may not show under high-noon sun, but may be easy to see under different lighting conditions.

Of course, that’s not to say a vehicle may not have been repainted all over. In that case, you may have to get a little more determined when you start looking for problem areas. Another easy way to check for body work is to examine the body gaps – or the spaces between different panels. All of the gaps should be uniform in size, without any major variation from one side of the car to the next or from top to bottom. If you can’t tell any difference with the naked eye, the car is probably OK.

Last but not least, you can use an ordinary refrigerator magnet to check for body filler. Some shops use large amounts of filler to fix dings and dents instead of straightening or replacing the body panel outright. Wrap the magnet in a handkerchief and place it in various places on the vehicle’s metal. If it sticks, there’s probably not body filler there. If it doesn’t you may have a problem. Photo courtesy of San Francisco Citizen