Is carfax legit?

[ioni]

I just pulled up a carfax on a 2013 car. Carfax has entries on it going back every year all the way to 2001. WTF? Is carfax really just another scam?

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

I just pulled up a carfax on a 2013 car. Carfax has entries on it going back every year all the way to 2001. WTF? Is carfax really just another scam?

How do YOU know it's a 2013 car?

Let me guess, you took the VIN off of some kind of part on the car?

 

[ioni]

Well g37s didn't come out until like 2010 so...

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Well g37s didn't come out until like 2010 so...

No but seriously, where did you get the VIN from to do the car fax check? You do hear about people taking parts from old cars to fix new cars, leaving the VIN from the old car.

Just a suggestion /shrug. This is assuming you pulled this Car Fax yourself.

 

[ioni]

The results from truecar have a link to the report so I just used that.

 

[zerocool84]

The results from truecar have a link to the report so I just used that.

Then it's obviously an incorrect link.

 

[amdhunter]

Just to let you know, I hit my Jetta 2x with about $4k in damage total, fixed by Geico each time, and once had some paint chips fixed at VW themselves...and not only did Carfax say absolutely nothing about the accidents, the car was still sold as a CPO vehicle. It shouldn't have been with the amount of damage/accidents it had.

Don't take their word as 100% correct, but don't discount it fully.

 

[purbeast0]

Well g37s didn't come out until like 2010 so...

2008. i only know because i have a 2008 one and my wife has a 2008 g35, and that was the year they stopped making g35 coupe and the 37 was the new coupe.

 

[purbeast0]

Just to let you know, I hit my Jetta 2x with about $4k in damage total, fixed by Geico each time, and once had some paint chips fixed at VW themselves...and not only did Carfax say absolutely nothing about the accidents, the car was still sold as a CPO vehicle. It shouldn't have been with the amount of damage/accidents it had.

Don't take their word as 100% correct, but don't discount it fully.

yeah i bought a g37s CPO a couple years ago and it said nothing about an accident in the carfax report. then i took it to get an oil change a few months later and the mechanic told me it had clearly been in an accident in the past and he could tell that the paint on one panel didn't fully match because it wasn't as shiny/reflective as the rest. he pointed it out to me and i could tell afterwards.

so yeah, carfax doesn't include everything, but it can include some stuff you care about. my friend who is a mechanic actually thinks it's 100% useless because of this kind of stuff.

 

[SparkyJJO]

According to carfax my old car was clean, but it had been hit at least twice. Found out a few years after I got it that it had apparently been t-boned or something. Lovely. It drove fine and had no weird issues related to the damage aside from the dash just not quite lining up with the A-pillar on the passenger side.

If a free report is available on a car I'm looking at then I'll look at it, but other than that I won't buy a carfax report.

 

[OverVolt]

I would say no, going by this thread.

If you think about it, probably only big repair shops are reporting to car fax. My car hit a curb once and I had the tow truck repair guy put a new shock on there on the cheap. Yea..... thats not on carfax for sure.

There are alot of "off the grid" mechanics. The idea that carfax can tell you if anything major is wrong with a car is laughable when you really think about it. Any ole joe schmoe who thinks he is awesome at repairing his car can have effed it up.

 

[OverVolt]

I just pulled up a carfax on a 2013 car. Carfax has entries on it going back every year all the way to 2001. WTF? Is carfax really just another scam?

Betcha a mechanic fat-fingered the wrong VIN into the system or the scanner mis-read the VIN, which can happen sometimes.

 

[who?]

Maybe car thieves took a VIN plate from a wrecked car by the same manufacturer and put it on a stolen car. Is there a VIN on the firewall under the hood? Does it match the dashboard plate?

 

[jlee]

Carfax is only as reliable as the information submitted for the vehicle.

 

[Ns1]

It is no replacement for a mechanic inspection. That said I think the best route is to get both.

 

[bradly1101]

My Carfax showed nothing when I bought my used Previa fourteen years ago, but it had repaired body damage and from some of the areas of rust, it had obviously been in a flood.

 

[mrrman]

carfax is fixed...

 

[ElFenix]

Carfax is only as reliable as the information submitted for the vehicle.

Yup. Not everything is submitted. That said, a dealer once showed me a clean Carfax on a car that the door didn't quite close just right, but using experian's autocheck showed it had been in an accident on that side.

 

[who?]

Maybe they get their data from some insurance industry database but they do show mileage reported for registrations.

 

[rh71]

My dealer scratched my car requiring body work (also them) and it wasn't reported, but they reported every single oil change, inspection, etc. they did otherwise. I go to an indy shop now and none of that work shows on it. So no, it won't show everything, but I would still use it.

 

[waggy]

no it is not. not just from the threads here.

My dad has owned or ran car lots for 50ish years. i asked him when i was looking for a car about it. he said sure pull but don't base the decision off it. He said he doubts more then %20 of the accidents end up on it.