When I bought a car a couple of years ago, I got a CARFAX report for it prior to buying and it didn't reveal any problems with the car — no accidents or anything. Then someone recommended that I check it with other services as well. I searched my VIN number through the Internet and found a lot of similar VIN reporting websites that are not only much cheaper, but also showed that the car had been in an accident and even provided photos of the damages. I'll never use CARFAX again!

 

they all suck.

 

They all rely on voluntary reporting by whoever works on the vehicle, so yes, not very reliable. Maybe better than nothing.

 

As far as I know, CARFAX gets some of their info from companies that are not responsible for the information provided. My friend who works for the government told me only NMVTIS is responsible for any information that is provided on VIN number decoding. It turns out that the information provided by CARFAX is not verified. What is even more interesting (BUT THAT'S PURELY MY GUESS) is that CARFAX might have some kind of agreement with dealers and provides deliberately negative information in their reports when buying a car from a person, and then resells it with a clean CARFAX for a higher price... You should think about it!

 

No. They have no way of knowing if the person running the report is buying it from a dealer or private party.

There is no for sure way to know all the history of a car. If something bad comes up on a Carfax, then that should be considered. But if a car has a clean Carfax, it does not necessarily mean there have been no accidents.

 

CarFax, as well as any other vehicle history service, is simply one tool in the toolbox and not a be all/end all. Repair shops are voluntary reporting only, while police reports are public record and generally included, but there can be significant damage to a car that occurs on private property that does not require a police report. The bottom line is have an expert examine the potential purchase if you are not skilled in evaluating vehicles.

 

[QUOTE=ES6T;410108]No. They have no way of knowing if the person running the report is buying it from a dealer or private party.

So after some research on the web, i figured that a carfax could either be forged by a dealer (but that's not the case since OP said it got the report himself) or the information on carfax was not updated. It is a common case, I have read stories of people whose reports missed accidents and sales for months. But however there's a way to avoid this risk. Seek for companies that use NMVTIS and other sources as well. Their report will be the most reliable.
I have seen the comparison of Carfax and epicvin.com reports for one and the same vehicle and they were totally different! You can see clearly how damaged the car was, when it was sold. Meanwhile the Carfax report is totally clean, no accidents whatsoever.
(I can try to find a link to the reports, in case anyone's interested)

 

Thanks for sharing information...