I was looking at a certain car which I originally found on Vehix.com. I then found the same car for sale on Ebay. On Vehix, they offered a free Carfax report which was packed with service records and detailed registration events and emission inspections. It seemed like a very thorough report. Then, when I found the car on Ebay it was offered with a free "Autocheck" report. On the Autocheck report there was a hit on the accident damage section.
I emailed the seller (dealer) about the report, this is what came back to me...

"Yes. It appears that the vehicle has had a non-collision event in its history which could have been a theft, vandalism, or raod hazard accident which led to a police report. Car runs and drives great. I am sure that anyone in the market for a pre-owned large sports sedan would be impressed with the overall condition and capability of this vehicle. Let us know if you have any other questions."

My question, Carfax reports are supposed to be thorough and tell you everything about the car. Why didn't this damage report show up on the Carfax?

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'85 300SD (formerly california emissions)
'08 Chevy Tahoe
'93 Ducati 900 SS
'79 Kawasaki KZ 650
'86 Kawasaki KX 250
'88 Kawasaki KDX200
'71 Hodaka Ace 100
'72 Triumph T100R

I wouldn't trust Carfax at all. Recently I have purchased Diesel Mercedes and a few months later I ran a carfax on it. The system showed that the car was with 3 owners and Lien for the current owner (me) I got the car from the FIRST owner, the guy have purches the car with 72 miles on the clock, I was the second owner and I paid cash for the car. I've contacted the Carfax and insisted they put the record correct..after a few e-mail exchange they have corrected the issue. Now the report showing 2 owners and a clear title, no liens.
This is not the first time I run into the problems with them. Few years back I was about to buy Porsche 911, clean Carfax report, took the car from a dealer for overnight test drive.. went to show the car to a friend who owns body shop...guess what.... he have repaired the very same car 2 months prior on a insurance claim for the tune of almost $10 K....we went in the middle of the night to his shop and he have showed me ALL the pictures, before and after and the paperwork. Needless to say that the dealer wasn't happy the next day when I've told him the story of the car.... he have paid top $ to buy the car from the previous owner....

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"If women are so bloody perfect at multitasking how come they can't have a headache and sex at the same time?"
Billy Connolly

My take on carfax is this: if you see a car with a bad history, it's probably fairly accurate, but a "clean" carfax means nothing. I worked in a high-end body shop, and did lots of customer-pay repairs, even in the $10K-20K range, because people didn't want to turn it in to insurance, and have it hit carfax. This same dealership wouldn't take cars in trade with a bad history, so owners knew they were going to get killed at trade-in time, so it was cheaper to just pay for the repair and go on with their lives.

I did a few PPIs for prospective Porsche owners, and inspected several 911s that were allegedly never-hit, factory paint cars, and I could see blend lines and sloppy masking before they ever pulled the car off the rollback...caveat emptor applies, don't trust a database. Trust your own eyes.

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2002 Ford ZX2
2 x 2013 Honda Civics

My car has been in a few accidents since the previous owner (my step father) told me.

However none of them show up on Carfax same for Autocheck. I have a little maintenance book that shows when the repairs were done. Either way unless the car was in some crazy major front end accident I wouldn't worry about it.

My car looks fine and there isn't any rust where the accidents took place.

Carfax and autocheck both show the car as having one owner at 113,000 miles which was when he bought the car at an auction house. Before that it only had two owners in Illinois.

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-Typos courtesy of my mobile phone.

I don't trust either of them, but I do trust what I see.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200