How much does a carfax actually reveal about a car's history? Will it cover all accidents and repairs that ever been performed on the car? If a carfax report comes out clean, should I rest assured that the car hasn't had any accidents or repairs? Thanks.
carfax - comprehensive enough?
- Thread starter jwocky
- Start date
jwocky said:
Number of owners, registration/lien dates reported, private or lease car status, accidents reported.
Will it cover all accidents and repairs that ever been performed on the car?
Repairs? No. It will let you know if a recall has been issued though.
If a carfax report comes out clean, should I rest assured that the car hasn't had any accidents or repairs?
No. If the person is in an accident or damages the car without reporting it to the dealer/police/dmv and pays to repair it themselves out of their own pocket, only they would know about it natutrally.
Hope that helps.
On the other side of that coin you cant always trust what is identified as an accident on those CARFAX reports either as I discovered first hand. I just recently sold my 01 BMW 530. The buyer came to me concerned that the car had been in and accident and wanted a thorough mechanical/paint inspection done. I had no problems with him doing that as i knew the car was solid. BMW dealership came back and confirmed to the buyer that the car had been in no accidents or damage. After getting his inspection report he told me the stated that my car had been involved in a front end collision with severe front damage according to CARFAX. What BS. What had actually happened was some dubree had fallen off another vehicle and scratched up my lower front spoiler. I filed a report and had the lower spoiler repainted. This simple spoiler repaint got my car labeled with a severe front end damage report. So i will think twice about filing a report for such simple matters again.
BTW, Carfax doesn't even report all accidents that have been recorded by the DMV. I wrecked a BMW, had a police report, had repairs done by an authorized shop and paid for by my insurance to the tune of $12,000, and Carfax never showed this on the report. It was a lease, and I checked the Carfax before turning the car back in (2 years after the wreck), and it was as clean as can be.
There is still no substitute for an inspection by a competent NSX tech and a body shop.
JMO - Todd
There is still no substitute for an inspection by a competent NSX tech and a body shop.
JMO - Todd
Another thing you have to look out for is what I ran into over in Tampa looking at an NSX that was for sale.
The Carfax for this 91 showed three owners... No problem. The last time the car had been inspected was back in 1996 with just 16,000 miles on the car. Seems a little odd, but there are no annual emissions checks or anything here in Florida, so I let that go too. Owner claimed that the car still had just 21k miles on it as of 11/2002... Still within possibility.
Drove three hours to go see it. Turns out the clown owns a machine shop... Red flag time. Car had been repainted, I found cracks in the plastic wheel well liners, and the rims had been painted gloss black and then back to aluminum color (and both layers were now peeling). From ten feet back though, the car looked OK. Opened the door to be met by a musty odor and trashed leather seats. [edit] The kind of wear and tear that
you only see on cars with way over a 100k miles on them. [end edit]
In this case the car's odometer had obviously been rolled or replaced with a younger odometer from a wrecked NSX, and I let the owner know I would be reporting him for odometer fraud. I checked on the car's Carfax report a year after I had reported it, and nothing had been done about it.
Luckily for me, these guys were too stupid to really pull off this con-job, but if they had just replaced the interior and the minor cosmetics, it would have been more difficult to tell, because it was a pretty good repaint and they did do a pretty good job dressing up the engine.
Point being, its always best to have an Acura Certified Tech, or some other true expert that you trust, inspect any vehicle you are interested in buying. You can't blindly trust Carfax, just like everyone else has said above.
The Carfax for this 91 showed three owners... No problem. The last time the car had been inspected was back in 1996 with just 16,000 miles on the car. Seems a little odd, but there are no annual emissions checks or anything here in Florida, so I let that go too. Owner claimed that the car still had just 21k miles on it as of 11/2002... Still within possibility.
Drove three hours to go see it. Turns out the clown owns a machine shop... Red flag time. Car had been repainted, I found cracks in the plastic wheel well liners, and the rims had been painted gloss black and then back to aluminum color (and both layers were now peeling). From ten feet back though, the car looked OK. Opened the door to be met by a musty odor and trashed leather seats. [edit] The kind of wear and tear that
you only see on cars with way over a 100k miles on them. [end edit]
In this case the car's odometer had obviously been rolled or replaced with a younger odometer from a wrecked NSX, and I let the owner know I would be reporting him for odometer fraud. I checked on the car's Carfax report a year after I had reported it, and nothing had been done about it.
Luckily for me, these guys were too stupid to really pull off this con-job, but if they had just replaced the interior and the minor cosmetics, it would have been more difficult to tell, because it was a pretty good repaint and they did do a pretty good job dressing up the engine.
Point being, its always best to have an Acura Certified Tech, or some other true expert that you trust, inspect any vehicle you are interested in buying. You can't blindly trust Carfax, just like everyone else has said above.
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