Carfax - not so much

I took my wife's VW to Carmax's "Car Buying" location to get it appraised. I know what the KBB values are and I thought they would give at least a decent offer. That was before they showed me the AutoCheck report showing a rear-end collision in 2005 on the car. Their appraisal reflected it and he told me since the car was wrecked he could only offer X price.

I wasn't upset at the price, I was upset at the clean Carfax report I had from the dealer I bought the car from in 2007. Had I known the car was ever in a wreck I would not have bought it, or at least paid less. I crawled all over that car, pulled back body panels, took apart interior panels, lights, everything. I spent so long checking over that car that other customers thought I was crazy. At the time we thought we were paying a decent price for the car. I'm tearing the house apart to find that Carfax report from 2007, but it might not do any good at this point. I'm going to buy a Carfax report on the car and see if the wreck shows up now.

I asked the Carmax employee why AutoCheck showed a wreck when Carfax did not? He didn't seem surprised and said AutoCheck shows way more information than Carfax does, and that Carfax omits things. Just great.

In reply to slefain:

Nice to know. Thanks for the "heads-up".

While it is likely the case that AutoCheck is correct and CarFax is wrong, it is also possible that AutoCheck is wrong, particularly if you can see no sign of the crash repair after a thorough inspection.

A friend of mine discovered that there was an NTSB report indicating his plane had been severely damaged in a crash in California. He owned the plane at the time of the alleged crash, but hadn't been to California, and wasn't severely injured, as the NTSB report indicated that the pilot/owner was.

It turns out that someone made an error entering either the tail number or serial number (it wasn't clear which) and wound up entering the report on his plane, which just happened to be the same year, make, and model. They never cross-checked whichever of the serial number/tail number they didn't screw up to see that it was the wrong plane.

I suspect something similar could have happened here if someone mis-keyed the VIN.

That said, the moral of the story is probably to check both AutoCheck and CarFax.

Two things: CarFax has a free report deal going on right now, see slickdeals.net for details. The Volvo XC90 I bought as a CPO from a dealer was hit in the front at some point hard enough to cause one headlight to be replaced and break a mounting tab on the other. I didn't figure this out until last weekend when I tried to figure out why the lights bounced so much and pulled the assemblies. I had a clean carfax and the lights are almost $1k each so I'm guessing there was an insurance claim involved. I will be calling the selling dealership about the broken light tomorrow but the point is carfax isn't infallable. What you did in checking the car over was better than any carfax report.

Carfax has their whole buy back guarantee thing.

There are scams, and there are cons.

Then there is Carfax.

billy3esq wrote: A friend of mine discovered that there was an NTSB report indicating his plane had been severely damaged in a crash in California. He owned the plane at the time of the alleged crash, but hadn't been to California, and wasn't severely injured, as the NTSB report indicated that the pilot/owner was.

Ah, the problems of the upper-middle class!

Carfax is not wonderfull. I learned that years ago.

My old CRX was listed as fraudulent mileage, by me, to me. BS. The mileage was accurate, and I did not ever sell the car to myself, and I never reported a false mileage claim about myself.

The old Volvo was clean, when it had clear visible evidence of the accident and the dealership repair information in the glovebox.

Carfax Believers =

Yeah, what sucks is now the car has the scarlet letter of "accident" on it. We'll put it on AutoTrader next week for a decent price and see what happens. Some stock broker's daughter/wife/mistress will see it and want it. We have to sell it, but there is no time frame so I'll just wait it out. Luckily working at AutoTrader means I can run ads for free with a ton of pics.

Just wanted to warn folks.

I bought my pathfinder with a clean carfax after going over the truck pretty well.

I later found overspray on the mudflaps and on the bottom of the receiver hitch.

So something was painted back there.... dunno. all the bodywork was pretty much perfect when I got it and I've had no problems since, and the paint all matches 100%.

so I guess it was rear ended at some point in time hard enough to need something painted back there.

Carfax is an informational tool, like any other. It is not a panacea.

I went to Philly to look at a CL car recently. A 2002 Outback Sport that looked like it had led a typical city life and ran fine. Odometer read 080,XXX miles on a 6-digit display. Seller said he was the original owner but had not given me the VIN when I called. All of this appeared plausible if not necessarily gospel truth.

I had an open Carfax account at the time so I bopped down to the local library and ran the VIN. Turns out he was the 3rd owner and the car had 188,000 miles on it. Needless to say I walked, but Carfax does help as a data point.

I bought a project car and knew it had been totalled, and written off by the insurance company. I had a chance to run it, out of curiosity, and it came up clean on the carfax.

I guess the bright side is that carfax shows it as clean so the accident won't turn up on your average car buyer's search...

so you can still sell it private party as a clean car, if your conscience is ok with that.

Carfax and the like only show things that are reported. Say you wreck your car and take it to uncle bob's backyard autobody shed. Now, bob knows a guy that's really good with a sledge and some bondo, so they sort of "fix" the damage. The car looks ok to people that don't really know much about cars (I mean, it's all the same color, right?), and the carfax is clean so it's obviously never been wrecked. Everyone wins, especially bob and carfax.

I have a clean carfax for my VW Passat but I have found overspray inside the engine cowling. From the factory? I hope not....from a bodyshop, more likely. This car was leased when new, then I purchased it. You never know.

In reply to Osterkraut: I am curious of this. I work for the FAA and the NTSB calls upon our information. Was this a typo of AC ID or actual proven fact that this AC ID was involved in an accident? I am shocked that facts of this magnitude would be overlooked! (no offense to car lovers, aircraft safety is on a different safety concern) how could this be true?

Well the Carfax is clean as a whistle. So now I have one service reporting an accident, and the other not. I have crawled all over that car and found nothing wrong with it, and that's impressive considering in a previous life I used to sell used cars. I'm wondering if the car was damaged on the dealer lot and repaired by the original selling dealer. I don't feel so much like an idiot now for buying the car. A Carfax report may still be useful for determining prior fleet use or multiple owners, and possible a dealership maintenance history.

ZOOMX5 wrote: I have a clean carfax for my VW Passat but I have found overspray inside the engine cowling. From the factory? I hope not....from a bodyshop, more likely. This car was leased when new, then I purchased it. You never know.

If it was leased there is a good chance the lessee paid a body shop to touch up some small scratches and dings before turning it in and getting raped by the dealer.

ddavidv wrote: Carfax Believers =

Win. Every time I see one of those "Show me the Carfax" commercials, I cringe thinking of the salesmen who have to deal with a wave of belligerant asshats.

Why not call up autocheck and see if they'll pay the difference in value in exchange for use of your story in their next ad campaign

skruffy wrote: Carfax and the like only show things that are reported. Say you wreck your car and take it to uncle bob's backyard autobody shed. Now, bob knows a guy that's really good with a sledge and some bondo, so they sort of "fix" the damage. The car looks ok to people that don't really know much about cars (I mean, it's all the same color, right?), and the carfax is clean so it's obviously never been wrecked. Everyone wins, especially bob and carfax.

but I think the thing here is that this accident WAS reported. The other service found the report. Carfax didn't.

I'd be asking carfax to buy back the car, and at the very least, ask for a refund of anything I'd paid carfax.

The carfax buyback guarantee, I think, is that if the car was reported as totalled, a lemon, flood title, etc, and they missed it, they will buy back the car. If it was never reported, they don't. In this case you have a report but it doesn't sound like the car was totalled so I doubt it falls under their policy.

But at the very least ask for a refund of what you paid carfax...

poopshovel wrote:

ddavidv wrote: Carfax Believers =

Win. Every time I see one of those "Show me the Carfax" commercials, I cringe thinking of the salesmen who have to deal with a wave of belligerant asshats.

I didn't know whether to feel bad for the car salesman who had to deal with such a dick, or the customer who thought that a Carfax report meant a damn thing.

I'm gonna go with a slightly different approach than all of you on this. I will trust my eyes. If I see something thats wrong, over spray, or misaligned body panels. But a carfax does have the chance to show something wrong (or for that matter, something right). I think that its a valuable tool, but you must remember its not the end all be all.

you are correct. but if I was looking at a used car that was only a few years old but had, say, 6 or 7 different owners (and I've seen them) thats a sign that you might want to steer clear.

Something aint' right about that car.

And if a car got a flood title the bodywork might look great. You just won't know anything was wrong till all the eletronic things start malfunctioning.

etc.

it has a value.

up to a point.

we are learning more and more about what that point is.