Dear Clean Carfax Report,...

You are dead to me.

Do tell

You are providing about as much information as the car fax on the car that was rebuilt by its owner...

I'm betting car suffered heavy damage as unsold unit and the dealer paid for repairs under an umbrella policy opposed to policy on the specific vehicle. bonus points for flood.

My friend had the same thing happen with a Mustang. It turned out that the POS was probably rebuilt by the PO. The car did look good, though.

I warn people of this all the time.

Can't wait to hear this one.

(pulls up chair and grabs popcorn...)

I just looked at a car (ok, minivan) saturday morning. The seller had a carfax app, so he showed me the report.

I was looking for records of timing belt change (seller had none). Interestingly, there was a note on the carfax that the minivan was brought into a dealer in November for a 'no-start' condition, then was traded into the dealer shortly there after, and then was sold to an auction house (where this seller bought the car I presume).

Open the engine bay, and I see "50K - 05 odyssey" written on the engine cover in oil pencil. I ask the seller why the engine was replaced (ok - that was an assumption, but not a bad one I think). He spits off some bull about how mechanics regularly write on the engine in oil pencil doing regular maintenance and this engine was original.

Hmmm, why would a car go into a dealer with a 'no-start', and then be traded into the dealer and quickly sent to auction? Sounds like a timing belt broke to me.

I was actually impressed at what all was on the carfax in this case... as long as you are able to read between the lines.

EDIT - sorry for off topic.

and keep in mind that if a indy mech. does the work, odds are no info sent to carfax

Ahh CarFax, the biggest automotive marketing sham since octane boosters adding performance. Their whole marketing approach and business model is to convince you it is necessary. Facepalms

Yeah... I always pull a carfax, but never trust it. It's one of those things that is meaningless if clean, but exceedingly valuable if it isn't.

I like carfax type reports, you just need to know it isn't perfect, but it is a good tool to use in addition to others, like your eyes.

yamaha wrote: Ahh CarFax, the biggest automotive marketing sham since octane boosters adding performance. Their whole marketing approach and business model is to convince you it is necessary. *Facepalms*

wait ?… wut ?… octane boosters don't work ?

Tom Suddard wrote: Yeah... I always pull a carfax, but never trust it. It's one of those things that is meaningless if clean, but exceedingly valuable if it isn't.

Exactly.

Here's the car:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/301321906444?_trksid=p2060778.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

And here's the Carfax:

http://www.carfax.com/VehicleHistory/p/Report.cfx?partner=ECL_0&vin=YV1NK53D82J032312

Lots of details about service, but no mention of the fact that three quarters of the car was repainted and it was obviously not recent.

After a phone conversation and some negotiations, we agreed on a price and I towed my trailer to New Jersey. Ordinarily, that's not how I operate, but based on the extensive photos and the seemingly good Carfax, I decided it was worth it.

The photos were very generous. The car was fairly disgusting, which was not Carfax's fault. Filthy, a crushed rocker panel, noisy dash, A/C not working and very smelly inside.

Whe I asked why it had stayed in their inventory for so long, he mentioned that they had done some work on the car. When pushed for details, he said that they put a new transmission in it. When I asked about that, he said it was remanufactured. When I asked if they just put in a used one from a junkyard he described it as a "used remanufactured transmission". It shifted poorly and trim was missing around the shifter, which had a bunch of coins jammed in it.

I drove home with my empty trailer.

That sucks dude. But come on.. Autotragic. It's not even the best color.

Saffron or go home.

t25torx wrote: That sucks dude. But come on.. Autotragic. It's not even the best color. Saffron or go home.

For this particular car, it needed to be an automatic.

Years back when car fax came with a guarantee I purchased a ford F150 xlt crew cab. From the local dealer. At the time having a clean carfax was a big dealer selling point and they were pulling them on all used vehicles and actually posting them in the windows. The truck I wanted was used but with less than 10k. It was a off lease vehicle from ford. Anyway The car fax was clean so I got it with an agreement from the dealer that I would bring it back in a couple days for a standard dealer service inspection and service they do to all used cars. It was delivered to the dealer in the morning and I drove it off the lot that afternoon. A Friday afternoon. But what could be wrong it was a ford corporate lease car. Drove it for three days over a weekend and brought it in on Monday morning. About noon I got a call asking me if I could come down there was a problem with the truck. The short of it was the truck had been in a big accident and although the body had been fixed to a first rate standard the frame had been botched and it was unsafe to drive. I was pissed as I really did like the truck. And my trade in had been shipped to the auction that morning. Not sure if that was really true but it was not on there lot.

The dealer told me that they would make it right but they had to get that truck back from me as this was a big legal problem with both carfax and with ford corporate.

I got a f150 larriot supper crew as a loaner until the dealer could sort it out. A week later they called me and offered an even swap of the larriot I was driving for the XLT. I told then that as long as it did not cost me anything I was good with it as they were the same year and had similar mileage.

The dealer stood by there word and picked up all my out of pocket expenses like tax title and registration Everything an gave me a extended warranty an an extended service plan. When it was all said and done the sales manager told me that carfax would be reimbursing them for all there out of pocket expenses associated with the truck that they originally sold me as well as costs associated with making things rite with me.

I was also told that the truck was more than likely going back to ford as they were probibly going to pursue the previous person that that had the truck for damages. Sounded messy but in the end I felt that the dealer did rite by me and this was probably in part due to the car fax guarantee at the time. I am not sure what my legal rights were. I was told later that I could have probably gone after ford and would have been entitled to triple damages. This is probably another reason why the dealer was so willing to make things rite.

Don't hate on Carfax...it's the people who use it, and more importanly HOW they use it/market it, that creates an issue. As a few people pointed out, Carfax is a good tool, but it shouldn't be relied on as the gospel for a car. Carfax reports information that they are able to obtain, but they can't get it all. I like to use it, because if there's a hit, at least I know right off the bat what I'm dealing with. If it's "clean", that's a good sign, but by no means a gaurantee.

I knew my E36 was rebuilt (title told me, even though the PO lied). I didn't know how, why, where, or when (other than it was at least 7 years ago, cause that's the age of the title). Autocheck told me that it was an FL car, written off in MD in '01, Imported to Canada in '02, owned by 1 guy until '13, bought by the guy I bought it from (who doesn't stay in a car more than 3 months, I think so he can not pay tax). So it at least gave me an interesting history of the car. Also showed that the low miles (116k) was probably accurate.

Still don't know for sure WHY it was written off, or why the paint looks like it lived in a desert for 20 years, but my visual inspection showed it had been rear-ended and fixed (not perfect, but good enough).

The only good thing that carfax does for me is let me know where the car was registered in the past. With Austin being a very transient town, I can see quickly if it was a rust belt car that got transferred here or an Austin native.

It helps in narrowing down the cars I want to look at. I have to say, I've gotten spoiled on wrenching on clean southern cars.

I'd agree CarFax is both good and bad. If I had run a CarFax on the VIN of my '95 Cummins before I bought it off eBay, there would have been nothing to indicate what the truck was - something pieced together from two different trucks. However, after discovering the dash VIN and the VIN on every other body panel didn't match, I ran a CarFax on both numbers and was able to peice together what probably happened.

Worth getting? I suppose so... Trustworthy? Hell no.

it's brilliant marketing and little else.

it seems the more car-ignorant the buyer is, the more they demand to see a clean carfax. i encourage them to spend their own money on it, as I've rarely learned anything tangibly useful from one, and regularly find them completely misleading.

Woody wrote: You are dead to me.

I don't understand why they were ever alive to you, or why you'd rely on them so heavily.

A database that relies on people providing data to it for your third party perusal is inherently going to be flawed, inaccurate and missing data. Foolish to ever think otherwise.

Best summary of how to use a Carfax I've heard: A clean CarFax means nothing, but a dirty CarFax means something.

Edit: D'oh, beaten by Tom.

I got screwed by a clean CarFax on my wife's 2005 New Beetle convertible. CarFax was clean, AutoCheck showed an accident. Guess which one the dealer uses to sell by, and which one the dealer uses to value trade-ins? Yup. By the time I discovered it there was nothing I could do.

Neither service can replace a good PPI.