Hello scotty and others
Had a quick question. How reliable are CARFAX reports in getting a used car?
thank you for your help!!
It can give some useful info, but as others have stated, it can be missing a lot.
It can show you how may owners it had, and how long they had it.
It can possibly show you maintenance records, which is nice to know.
It can possibly show you any wrecks, but again, information could be missing.
It can also show you where the car was registered.
Getting one for free is always nice.
I do not make a decision on buying a car based on carfax, but some info it has can be nice, like seeing regular maintenance.
This has been discussed numerous times on our forum if you do a search. Here is one example:
https://carkiller.com/scottykilmer/qa/whats-your-opinion-about-carfax/#post-147791
It’s mainly good to see if there’s been odometer rollbacks.
How reliable are the “car fax” reports now days.
We JUST had this question the other day, in addition to the dozen other times we've already answered it. PLEASE use the search box in the top right corner. I'm going to merge this with the previous question.
Think about it ... if I do critical maintenance on my vehicle myself, does carfax peek through my garage window?
Conversely, if I smash up my car and don't report, and then I take it to the crackhead down the street to fill with bondo and spraypaint over, does carfax know about that?
I also know that in the USA it's common for people to change cars without bothering with titles or insurance.
How reliable are the “car fax” reports now days.
They're not. About all they're good for is checking for turned back odometers. They might also show maintenance depending on where it was done. You can't count on accidents or flooding being reported to them.
thank you so much
How reliable are the “car fax” reports now days. I could have swore they used to also specify if a car had ever been flooded or not but today I didn’t see that concern on there anywhere. Thoughts?
