Couple of years ago, I had the timing belt (and water pump) replaced at 85,000 miles on my 2008 PT Cruiser Turbo. Just for fun recently, I checked the 'CarFax' report for the car. The timing belt replacement was NOT noted! This is important, because if a person is going to buy ANY used car with a four cylinder with a timing belt -- with 50 or 60 thousand miles on it -- the first thing you should ask is: "Has the timing belt been replaced?" So I sent a copy of the repair receipt to CarFax, and they said, "Oh -- you had the work done at a repair shop NOT affiliated with CarFax. We can't report that repair." Huh? What good is CarFax if they dont report work done by a good independent shop?? What's your opinion? Thanks!
Carfax is practically worthless for that very reason. My step dad bought agently used, "certified pre-owned" 2014 Ford Escape a few years ago that was flooded out in Chicago and was not reported to Carfax. It was a rental car before our Ohio dealer got it. There were only 19,000 miles on the car and the transmission blew up from water inside the unit. There were telltale hints that something was wrong with the car in the month before it died. The power driver's seat didn't work because it was disconnected, and there was odd damage in the rear door frame from the back seat being taken out carelessly. The dealer tried to just fix the tranny and he demanded his money back. His bank actually did when they found out. Long story short, Carfax is a nice idea, but it's not accurate, and trusting it can be an expensive mistake!
Carfax is a business trying to make money for itself and its affiliated partners, not a magical car fairy.
Just keep a detailed journal of your maintenance, and keep the receipts.
Personally if I was buying a car, and the owner hands me a file folder of all the records he kept, I would prefer that to any info sold to Carfax.
The trouble with relying on Carfax is that not every shop or mechanic logs what they do with the company. Not all accidents get reported to them either. It's really not all it's cracked up to be.
Carfax is just another money making scheme like Angie's List and others who demand payment from people who use the service AND from those they promote.
This site seems to have a lot of free info (though they will try to sell you add-ons)
The key word here is "seems."