Can dealer erase certain vehicle history?
 

Lets say you're looking at used cars from various dealers, either CPO or simply pre-owned. You check the Carfax and it's nice and clean, virtually nothing on it.

If a dealer had a car with a checkered history and they wanted to sell it on their lot (a Honda at a Honda dealer or an Audi at an Audi dealer, etc), could they eliminate the problem service visits to make the history look cleaner? Very shady of course just wondering if it's possible.

Carfax buys its information from insurance companies, repair shops, state dmvs, auctions, rental companies, and more. Once the information is included, it cannot be removed unless it is proved to be false, and that would only be information supplied by one source, in your case, a dealer. Carfax may not have all the history if a car was repaired by a shop that did not report. A particular dealer may not have a contract with Carfax so nothing would be reported.

Records on paper are important, but they never tell the whole story. There will never be a substitute for a good independent PPI. Always, always, always.

Carfax is pretty much a joke. All marketing.

You can get your own credit history scrubbed so I don't see how something like Carfax as being 100% reliable. I'd use it as a guide only.

There's nothing better than getting an experienced* independent mechanic to check out a car.

I give absolutely zero weight to a Carfax report.

Plenty of formerly-totaled vehicles out there with a clean carfax. I recently attended an insurance auction, and the auctioneer would occasionally point out that a car had a clear title, nothing reported to carfax. Winning bids were far higher that what one would expect for cars damaged so badly.

On the other hand, a fellow pelicanite posted here that he brought just his wheels & tires to a tire shop, and the counter guy punched in 000,000 miles in the computer since the car wasn't there, and the computer program required mileage to be entered. Now a Carfax report on that car comes up with a red flag that the odometer has been tampered.

Bottom line- Don't inspect a Carfax report, inspect the actual car!

Thanks for the replies guys.

This is a very low mileage, Certified Pre-Owned BMW at a BMW dealer (three years old). There's a couple of items listed from the dealer that originally sold the car and the same dealer is now selling it again CPO, but really no service history or much else. Not that you can expect much service from BMW these days.

This. Carfax is really a bit of a joke. I've had a lot of cars with prior paintwork and a clean Carfax. Their service reporting is also terrible because their system tries to condense service records into a single entry. WTF does "engine checked" or "service claim" mean, and how is that helpful?

There was a recent Rennlist thread where a RL member was trading in a prior CPO 997 that suddenly showed an accident on the Carfax. As a CPO car it had supposedly been inspected for any damage and paintwork, and the car had zero damage during his ownership. Obviously the Carfax entry killed his trade in offer. He tried to have Carfax change the entry and they ignored him. After having multiple inspections done, the dealer called Carfax and were able to have the entry removed.

A lot of service history that has been done may not show on Carfax, so ask the dealer what the history is. Even if that dealer didn't service it, he should be able to access the service history done by other BMW dealers. As mentioned before, have your own inspections done, as not everything that has happened will appear on the Carfax. But they're handy for spotting things that did happen and make it onto the report.

To answer your question, no the dealer cannot erase service data that is in the BMW system.

My guess is that you won't see much, as not much is "required".

More is needed than what is suggested by their current thinking.

JR

I wouldn't worry too much about a certified (by BMW) preowned car that is being sold by the original dealership, it was probably a lease return that didn't require any service in the 3 years other than maybe oil changes.

By certifying the car, they intend to stand behind the car and represent it as an honest and true clean car (no floods, accidents, or rebuilds.

This. I looked at an E46 M3 that had a clean CarFax, but once on the lift it was very obvious that the pretty much the entire right side of the car had been replaced.

I think it's funny how they threaten all the boards against having CarFax threads; personally I would tell them to f-off.

This pretty much sums up the value of CarFax (taken from its website "agreement" page.)

"NEITHER CARFAX, ITS AFFILIATES, NOR ANY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE EMPLOYEES, AGENTS, THIRD PARTY CONTENT PROVIDERS, OR LICENSORS MAKE ANY REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, TO ANY ACTUAL OR PROSPECTIVE BUYER OR OWNER OF ANY VEHICLE AS TO THE EXISTENCE, OWNERSHIP OR CONDITION OF THE VEHICLE, OR AS TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF ANY INFORMATION ABOUT A VEHICLE LISTED ON THE SITE.

It is a for profit business that sells histories of used cars, but cannot guarantee the accuracy nor completeness of that history, and provides no uniformity as to sources of data for vehicles.

How much is that worth to you?

I do not know if this is still true- But at one time you could title a car in
one of the southern states and it would be washed automatically.
This was done with a LOT of flood cars.

No. BUT some small unscrupulous dealers (and private owners) will change out the instrument cluster for one that reads less mileage when there is not a recent documented history of service or emissions testing. Most of the time it is plug-n-play and no one would know unless you had a factory scan tool.

CARFAX is not perfect of course, I do use it though as part of a total look-see when making a decision to purchase.

Old and long thread, but perhaps pertinent...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/504273-how-much-work-should-cpo-bmw-have-should-reported-buyer.html?highlight=89911+cpo

^^ That's the thread that reminded me of issues with CPO cars.

I've decided to pass on the car - it's just too far away.