Shopping at a reliable used car dealer is one of the most important things about purchasing a vehicle and one woman in Birmingham, Michigan, learned that the hard way. Several months after she bought a 2006 Ford Expedition the car began to smell like a rotting corpse and now she is suing the Ford dealership, Fox affiliate WJBK reports.

The woman claims she bought the vehicle in March but by the time summer rolled around the smell had become unbearable. And it was not just the smell that bothered her either, the SUV had some other significant drawbacks – including dead bugs and maggots littering the carpets in the front seats.

Perhaps most damaging is that the consumer was unaware of the car's lengthy and checkered history. The lawsuit claims that the SUV was originally a rental car in Florida before it was brought to Michigan. It also says that the Expedition was stolen. Both of these facts were not made clear to the owner.

"One that it was a prior daily rental," attorney Dani Liblang told the news channel. "They weren't told about that. Secondly, that it had been stolen and recovered, but worst of all, that it apparently had some kind of human remains in it that caused an awful decomposition-type smell."

If there's one thing the buyer's plight indicates, it's the importance of knowing a vehicle's history. Luckily, at New Jersey State Auto Auction such an experience would never come to pass. All the makes and models at New Jersey Auto are Carfax certified so you know the history of the car before you get behind the wheel.