CarFax Question - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

Graplr · #1 01-07-2011, 09:54 AM

I'm looking at cars right now. Is it a wise idea to run a CarFax on cars I'm seriously interested in? Or is it just a waste of $40? Are there other sites comparable to CarFax that I should be using?

Thanks,
Ryan

TX76513 · #2 01-07-2011, 10:16 AM

Auto Check is another and somewhat less expensive. Wouldn't even want to give an opinion on which is better. Either will only tell you things that are recorded. If the vehicle you are looking at is high end, yes its probably a good idea. Anything else a good drive and look over is going to give you more a gut on whether to pull the tigger or not.

tankowner · #3 01-07-2011, 01:25 PM

i think it's a good idea . . . if it turns up something, you can use that to bargain or walk away . . . if it doesn't turn up anything, you have added peace of mind, plus you can save it and use it if you ever want to sell it someone else

pawoSD · #4 01-07-2011, 01:27 PM

I've used autocheck....its cheaper....and does give about the same info/level of usefulness

babymog · #5 01-07-2011, 02:03 PM

I use carfax as a dealer (motorcoaches), and find it a useful tool. It is far from perfect, only can report what was reported to Carfax so use it only as one of your assessment tools and still look the car and its history over carefully.

Also, dealers can run the carfax on their account much cheaper than you can as an individual. For this, if you are looking at any cars at dealers, request that they run a carfax for you.

Hit Man X · #6 01-07-2011, 02:19 PM

I always purchase one when buying a vehicle, $40 is a cheap investment in case anything shows up. Saved me from buying a fresh water flood Z28 about two years back.

lietuviai · #7 01-07-2011, 02:30 PM

I've found lots of omissions on carfax reports. I've only had one that was of any value and that turned up an odometer rollback.
I ran one on a former government owned vehicle and it failed to turn up that fact. I ran one on another and absolutely nothing came up.
Bottom line: it can only report what's been reported for the most part.

BTW, do they still have free searches from time to time as they've done in years past?

Biodiesel300TD · #8 01-07-2011, 02:39 PM

Also keep in mind that Carfax can not run VIN from before they standardized all VINs, somewhere in the early 80s. My 78 can't be run in carfax.

Like someone else said, it will only report what was reported. My82 wagon had a clean title and car fax. But it had a pretty good front ending sometime in it's past. I have records for the repairs it but nothing shows up on carfax. And I'm not positive the odometer was the right one, and there was some evidence that it could have been swapped with a lower milage odometer. And there was nothing on car fax about it.

lietuviai · #9 01-07-2011, 02:57 PM

Sometimes a gut feeling is good enough. If it looks to good to be true, it probably is.
A car with a solid ownership and good records can often be the best bet. Even still nothing will predict what can happen driving the car home. Even the best maintained and presented car can turn into a disaster. It's a mechanical device with 1000's of parts and it will wear out or break eventually. It's just too hard to discover everything and it's too easy for an unscrupulous seller to hide something. You have to try to be well informed and have a good eye for detail to make a good purchase.
You always have to wonder why is the car for sale in the first place. Always ask, if it's such a good car, why is it for sale in the first place? More than likely there's something wrong, however small or inconspicuous, and the seller is fed up with it and he may or may not be willing to share it with you.

compu_85 · #10 01-07-2011, 05:50 PM

The carfax on my car told me the name of the shop that installed the new engine. I'm glad I ran one.

-J

tbomachines · #11 01-07-2011, 07:42 PM

I always run carfax reports, although its become pretty apparent they suck with older vehicles. Both of my 1982 SDs show NOTHING until about 2005. My 300E told me it had unknown salvage at 194 miles back in 1990 but was registered clean since 1992

its always good to know these things in advance when buying a car. In the case of my 300E the condition was excellent and a PPI revealed decent repairs so no concern to me.

Ken300D · #12 01-08-2011, 08:32 AM

Carfax tends to get a bit "militant" with their customers, especially if you are screening multiple cars. They think you are running cars for other people, and start harassing you in various ways to inquire why you are running so many reports. I found that rather annoying back in the old days when I used Carfax to screen potential purchases on EBay - and I stopped using them when I received a "rather hot" message from their representative that had reviewed my account usage. I paid for an UNLIMITED account and I expected to be able to use it in an UNLIMITED manner.

(We're talking about a max of 20 reports or so in the 30-day subscription period back then....)

Since then I have always advocated and used AUTOCHECK.

EBay has started to include Autocheck reports on almost all modern vehicles listed (since the 1981 VIN standardization) and if you want to get a good idea of what is contained in the reports, look over there.

Autocheck is great for -screening- cars out of contention for purchase. You will see things like "accident" or "salvage title" that might knock such cars off your potential purchase list. But do not actually buy a car long-distance based only on a clean report.

My personal method is to use Autocheck for screening out undesireables, and then go take a in-person look and test drive of the ones with good reports. In the past I have bid and won cars on EBay, but informed the user that I would need to inspect the car in person (and drive it) before I would pay. The honest seller who has described the car accurately will have no problem with that.

Ken300D

Hit Man X · #13 01-08-2011, 04:05 PM

I agree with Ken, Carfax is crap now. For nearly $50 you only receive a finite amount of VIN pulls... pretty useless as when I shop for vehicles I do not look at two.

AutoCheck is much better, I did receive that email from them too but I simply contacted them as I was searching for a few different models at once... then the planets realigned, champagne fell from the heavens, etc