When I bought my car, the carfax showed 2 owners and no accidents. Was talking to my insurance company last week and they happened to be the insurance company for the previous owner and what they told me shocked me, the car has 3 previous owners and has been in 3 accidents, 2 of which were repaired at the local jag dealer.

Just to let you know that Carfax can be wrong.

 

We have similar history checking services in the UK, who offer to pay the full value of the car if it turns out the information they gave to you was wrong and the car is either wrecked, stolen or has outstanding finance. Does 'Carfax' offer this?

 

Always keep in mind that Carfax is just another tool in the toolbox. It can miss quite a bit of data as you unfortunately found out....

 

I am not sure, I went to their website when I got the carfax and do not remember ever seeing that, but I am going to double check.

 

I believe that accidents that entail less than a certain amount of repair can be fixed and not reported on state DMV records.

This probably varies from state to state.

 

CARFAX is only as good as the participating member service points make it.

As far as I can determine, most indie shops are not members and report nothing. Most Jag dealers don't report really serious stuff. I had one Jag serv writer even tell me that he was precluded from releasing service history due to "homeland security" laws. I must have been looking particularly stupid that day. LOL

I have even been refused a complete service history from dealers when they knew it was a "condition of sale". One can understand a policy of not releasing previous owner names but the rest? Not so much.

 

There is no substitute for seeing and checking a potential purchase in person before going hard on the money. Depending on an "invisible third party" is always subject to error...sometimes rather significant. Moreover, for a very reasonable fee one can have a Jag Tech/Expert give a potential purchase a thorough going over and this is money very well spent. The appearance of an accident report in a CarFax report is of interest but not particularly of great value. The real issues is wether or not it was just cosmetic or structural and that finding is best done by a Jag Tech/Expert during a realtime inspection before the car is purchased. We have often seen postings on the Forum of vehicles purchased without thorough inspection/sight unseen, that upon taking possession require $$$$ of dollars in service/repair work.

 

You really have to take Carfax reports with a grain of salt. Basically their reports are only information that is provided to them from different sources. Not every one passes bad reports on to them.

 

They do have a buy back policy but it's so full of jibberish language and hoops to jump through I'm not even sure if it's worth anything.

 

I have heard that AUTOCHECK.COM has a better record than CARFAX.
You might try BOTH and see what the other might have missed.

bob gauff

 

I just finished using AutoCheck for a month and was not impressed with the results. AutoCheck tends to show you "registration events" rather than "service events". So a Car Fax report might show a record for a dealer service but that won't show up on AutoCheck. As someone has previously stated, the data is only as good as the reporting which tends to be spotty.

 

IMHO CarFax is far from the last word when buying a car but it did once stop me from buying a car. A indy car dealer was selling an 06 XJ8 calling it a " Cream Puff", "Showroom New" and boasting about having full service records. After reading the carfax and it showing the car was in for repair 21 times in 4 years, I said to the dealer that I wouldn't boast about the service records and you can keep the car at any price.

 

Car was inspected, but you cannot tell if the paint was not applied right. That is what happened in my case, my paint started cracking over the summer and now I need to repaint the front end.

 

Agreed, when I picked up my S Type there was sign that the rear bumper was plastic welded, yet there was no metal damage to the tire well. The owner hid the truth from her son, who was handling the sale. No mention of any accidents or title changes in the carfax. No mention when calling up the Jag dealer that serviced the car for the majority of its life.

Carfax did prevent me from buying a Eurovan though. It listed that everytime the van went in for it bi-annual smog check, it failed. Repeatedly. Nope, not going to buy that hole in the street.

 

I will toss my 2 cents in on this, as facts I know about. First off both services (Carfax and Autocheck) only use information reported via auto auctions, state DMV records and insurance companies. Every couple years both these companies BID to win the right to get the information 9 months to a year before the other one. Currently Autocheck won the bidding war and has the most accurate "reported" information available.

I am a licensed used car dealer..... I have subscribed to both and can say for FACT that I have run the same vin on a car at auction through both companies and had Autocheck show an accident and Carfax not show it. On a side note I could see where the car had been painted anyway because Ive been in the industry for 35 years but while viewing the car had another buyer run his Carfax and say, this ones nice and no accident history. At that point I showed him the Autocheck and where it was painted which he appreciated.

Now on another point I will say, for example, your kid wrecks his car and you dont want to turn it into the insurance. You take it to ANY bodyshop and when paying cash or not using insurance that repair will NOT show up on any record. So you just dont know unless you hire an independent inspection.

We have had customers use a place called Inspectyourcar.com I think. Maybe search it but they only cost like $150.00 and I can tell you the inspection process takes 45 minutes to an hour and is very indepth. They do it right and drive the car also.

Anyway.... just my 2 cents but if your going to use one I suggest (at least for the next 18 months) using Autocheck. But I also think you need to have an inspection done if buying from anyone who doesnt have a folder full records on the car.

 

I have never trusted any of these services. Why? because they must rely on information from others who may or may not give it to them. I look at the information just to see where the car lived most of it's life and the rest is smoke and mirriors. I like cars from the west coast, less rust. Other than that, It is of no use. I too have found the information was not totaly accurate and it just goes to show that a used car is just a suprise waiting to be opened. Sometimes good other times not so good.

I have been lucky with used cars, only because I have been in the car business for 40 years and have an idea of what to look and listen for.

The car Fax is a nice idea still getting it's act together.