Carfax Reliability?

[North Coast Cab]

I am in the market for a used car and was about to use Carfax, until I saw that it's now $35. Seems a lot more than last time I used it.
Anyway, what's the latest on accuracy and reliability?

Thanks

[krystar]

it's as accurate as and reliable as the people that report their damages.

repair shops aren't required to submit info. police departments aren't required to submit accident reports. dmv's and state emissions depts do submit.

[Z-man]

This is the way I've used Carfax in the past:

- If there are a lot of issues reported on a car in carfax, then walk away. IE: it verifies anything negative.

In other words: If the carfax comes back clean, that doesn't necessarily mean the car is clean. But if a carfax comes back with problems (odometer mis-reads, car passing through lots of owners...etc) then I know to walk away from the car and search for another.

I would never buy a car based on a positive carfax report alone.

-Z

[Rapewta]

A little over a year ago, I paid $45.00 for I think a 5 Carfax package. I used all of them. Are you sure the $35.00 is just for one car?
Carfax is helpful. I used it to eliminate six P-cars with the info provided.
Too many owners. Odometer problem. It is not the only information you might need for finding a clean auto but it helped me.
The problem I have with Carfax is I actually wasn't happy with the first five results, so I bought 5 more and found the car I bought with the second (seventh)
Carfax and the three remaining expired like a month later. You have to use them or lose them.

[kaisen]

And it very much depends on how old the car is

Trying to buy a 1989 911 Coupe based on Carfax?
The thing could have been hit by a train and welded from two junk stolen tubs and CarFax could be clean

[Joe Bob]

Garbage in Gospel out....if the wrench is a lazy wanker and puts in an extra '0' on the mileage they flag it as altered.

Mine has two records because they confused an 'O' with a '0' on the VIN.....

[jhynesrockmtn]

I received some interesting feedback from a potential buyer of my SC last year. After supplying him with what I believed the mileage history to be (which involved a bit of math as the speedo had been swapped but I had the original) he sent me an email calling me a liar based on the carfax. The car is an 82. He then emailed me a few days later apologizing saying he'd run one on his own 80's BMW and it came back very wrong.

[Neilk]

As Z-Man mentions, Carfax is only worth weeding out cars with major odometer issues or wrecks. My wife just traded in her car and I checked the dealer site where it is now listed. They had a link to the Carfax report so I clicked on it...

It shows the car as being clean and never wrecked. In fact she was in a small parking lot fender bender and had her rear bumper cover replaced 3 years ago by her insurance. Last year it had over $6,000 in hail damage requiring a new windshield and hood and that wasn't reported either. She had another small incident a couple of weeks ago which I would expect to see in Carfax and that wasn't there.

So my question is, what does it take to get an accident listed in Carfax? Does the insurance not report those to Carfax? They do cover themselves by saying "No accident / damage reported to CARFAX", but I could create my own site and say no accident damage reported to Neil.

Someone needs to expose them for being almost worthless.

[nota]

free report miles and owners
no idea on accidents

Free VIN Checker (http://www.getvin.com)

price is right FREE

[aigel]

- Carfax does not report every problem with the car
- If there is a problem reported however, it is generally true
- If you plan on reselling the car, a clean carfax is very important to have. So even if you don't think you need a carfax for your buying decision, I would run one to make sure the value of the car isn't affected by an accident or ODO rollback reported.

G

[msk1986911]

May be the Buyer's best friend and seller's worst enemy. The car I recently sold (Honda S2000) had an incident reported (pedestrian involved accident) which i knew about when I purchased the car. The accident was not severe enough to require the replacement of any panels. Fast forward 1.5 years when i sold the car...both dealers that I went to to trade the car discounted the cars value by $3K just because of the accident, as if the repairs had not been done properly, which they were (I promptly walked and eventually sold the car myself). Lesson learned for me...consider the Carfax report when you buy used and think forward to the impact any negative reports may have on future resale.

Mike (overstated of the obvious)

[Joe Bob]

What I think about Carfax.....

[Laneco]

Carfax is only part of the decision making process. A clean carfax does not mean a clean car, it means that nothing negative was repoted. Incongruous readings are errors in input, but definately warrant another look after all, if you buy it and the NEXT guy runs carfax, they'll have the same questions you did. I've got a Carfax on a vehicle I bought from my company that shows 3 different owners and indicates that the current owner has the vehicle on a lease - which I do not. This car also has just myself and my company as the previous owners. When my company owned it, the driver lost his job, the vehicle was transferred to another state for another driver. Carfax counted that as two owners. No idea why they think I have a lease. Weird.

It is interesting to see how much maintenance is now showing up in carfax. Alot of chain service stores report to carfax along with many (though clearly not all) dealers.

Carfax, plus PPI, plus written/documented history from owners, plus a personal evaluation are all part of the process.

Also, FYI, carfax only identifies 17 digit VIN cars, so older cars with "short" VINs will have nothing at all.

angela

[Noah930]

Originally Posted by kaisen

And it very much depends on how old the car is

Trying to buy a 1989 911 Coupe based on Carfax?
The thing could have been hit by a train and welded from two junk stolen tubs and CarFax could be clean

That's a good point. Carfax culls data from various computer databases. Like DMVs, for example. But as I once found out, in CA if a car has not been actively registered in the state for 5 years, any old registration info gets tossed. I found this out when I purchased my car, which had originally been sold in CA, but was then-registered in NV. Because it had been NV-plated for long enough, CA tossed all original registration records dating back to the original purchase. So if there was anything shady from way back when, that info had been lost.

Originally Posted by Z-man

This is the way I've used Carfax in the past:

- If there are a lot of issues reported on a car in carfax, then walk away. IE: it verifies anything negative.

In other words: If the carfax comes back clean, that doesn't necessarily mean the car is clean. But if a carfax comes back with problems (odometer mis-reads, car passing through lots of owners...etc) then I know to walk away from the car and search for another.

I would never buy a car based on a positive carfax report alone.

-Z

I think that's the right way to use Carfax.

[onewhippedpuppy]

What Z-man said, it's just part of the process. Anyone that buys a car based solely on the Carfax is a moron.

[nota]

any one try

Free VIN Checker (Free VIN Checker (http://www.getvin.com))

it looks to me to the same as the carfax but FREE

got the accidents right I know about on two tests

[944Larry]

Originally Posted by nota

free report miles and owners
no idea on accidents

Free VIN Checker (http://www.getvin.com)

price is right FREE

Hey Buddy-that thing works good. Showed an accident on mine the PO didn't tell me about. Thanks for this info!

[89911]

Found out the hard way. Car gets hit. Owner get car repaired and turns into insurance. Owner pays repair shop and holds check by insurance. Owner then sells, trades, wholesales car. Dealership sells car to buyer. All the time, nothing indicated on Carfax. Buyer checks later and now Carfax report indicates collision and repair. Seems the carfax doesn't become part of the record until the check actually is cashed which could be greater then 90 days or more. I bought (and returned) a M5 for this very reason after I discovered accident damage and insisted it was repaired. The dealership took it back and discovered the carfax report about a month after I bought it. I guess you can tell my faith in carfax.