Do you trust the Carfax report?

[busmaster11]

My gf thinks she found a good used car - a 95 Maxima GXE with 77K miles on it, and we may be able to talk it down to 7K. It drives, brakes, and accelerates powerfully and smoothly, and I think it may be a good deal. There's scratches on the car, and one of my friends thinks it had to be in a major accident for the price to be so low, as the asking price was about 1K undr the retail price I found at cars.com

So being a little suspicious, I got a Carfax report. It came out squeeky clean. Does that mean that I can trust the car now?

 

[woodie1]

I would have someone knowledgeable look the car over if you are unsure about the Carfax Report.

 

[DrumminBoy]

I dont think $1000 under retail is anything to worry about, but $18,000 IS.

 

[busmaster11]

Originally posted by: woodie1
I would have someone knowledgeable look the car over if you are unsure about the Carfax Report.

I'm trying to... But I'm not sure I can find someone on such short notice. You think getting a buyer's check would help?

 

[Zenmervolt]

Sometimes people have just been trying to sell the car for so long that they will drop the price down a lot just so they don't have to store the car in front of their house anymore. I mean, if they haven't gotten any bites on the car and it's been a couple months people tend to get sick of having it sit out in front of the house. Also, some people are just more critical. They may rate a car that would normally be considered "very good" as merely "good" because they think that a "very good" car should be near-concours level.

ZV

 

[zemel]

Ask the owner for all of the service and repair reports or bills or a listing of all work done on the car since they bought it.

Look at the dealer plate / sticker on it's rear; if not there, ask for name and addy of dealer where the car was originally bought; contact them and see if you can look at print out of all service done on the car.

The above will give you some info and may help somewhat.

If you sense the seller is in a rush to sell it, maybe this is a big hint it's a lemon or has serious problems.

Maxima's are good cars; I had a '90 Maxima for many years; was very happy with it and sold it so that I could buy a Pathfinder SUV.

Check Consumer Reports and also Edmund's website and their forums which are very good IMHO.

At Edmunds' site, "price" the car using their FMV (sales price) thingy and see what you get.

 

[Ornery]

"Do you trust the Carfax report?"

Hell yeah, I trust everything that is reported. The stuff to worry about is what's NOT reported! The only stuff you'll get from CarFAX is what's logged at certain intervals in certain locations. There are some counties that don't require emmisions tests etc. Not all accidents are reported to the police.

How many owners has it had? If that's some kind of "sports car" driven by a lead foot, nit-wit, you can just imagine what internal engine and tranny stress it's sustained. With a used car, you takes your chances. It's nice to actually know the previous owner(s).

 

[busmaster11]

Yeah, this is actually from a dealer, in fact, they said that it "just came in" and hasn't even been cleaned up. Which might be true, but I'm not sure.