Carfax is no good!

[Doug]

I have been looking for a used car with low miles. I purchased Carfax, I thought it would be a good investment to know the history of a used car.

Wrong...Carfax doesn't work!

Today I went to look at this vehicle Carfax represented as "clean" with no accidents. I worked at a new car dealership for 15 years and I have seen what a body shop will do with cars during repairs. I opened the trunk and looked under the rear floor mat. In the trunk was "Body Shop Dust" on the spare and every where inside the rear trunk! Then I looked at the right rear tire...sure enough..."over spray" on the tire!

Jeezz!

Then I Googled Carfax not reporting accidents and there was many examples of people complaining about the same thing! One example was an owner who was in an accident and made a claim through his insurance company for over $6,000 in damages...his Carfax report claimed it was Clean!

Beware and don't trust Carfax! I am glad I was able to find the error before I made a dumb purchase.

[mamill]

Interesting about that. Looks like you can't trust anyone. I always thought Carfax was a good idea, but never stopped to think if it was accurate or not. I guess if one is to question their accuracy then the real question is what kind of damage was really done to the vehicle. While $6000 may sound like a lot, depending on where the car was hit it may not be.
I recall a few years ago i was driving to the local supermarket on a day when the weather was less than ideal. As I turned into the driveway I hit a patch of black ice and slid - ~5mph- into the front of another car. My Explorer didn't show a dent; the other car was less fortunate and his grill and hood were pretty mangled. That cost my insurance company $5k, but there was nothing seriously damaged so to speak.
Another time when my daughter was learning to drive she backed up my wife's VW Passat into a brick retaining wall in our driveway! That was ~$3k but again no real serious damage. After it was repaired you couldn't tell anything ever happened. I would suspect that the Carfax report didn't mention this.

[Doug]

Mike,

Here is the link:
http://www.cleverdude.com/content/you-c ... ax-report/
Frame damage and two vehicles had $6,000 worth of damage. Carfax reported it

No Issues Reported. No “Frame Damage” and no “Accident” was reported. Why? I don’t know. I had the damage repaired by Allstate, and it was significant enough to warrant a report to Carfax, but apparently someone dropped the ball big time. Carfax does note under the “Other Information” heading that “Not all accidents or other issues are reported to CARFAX”, which is their way of saying “Don’t blame us!”.

I am not going to use Carfax as guide anymore.