Car Fax suxs. At least now they are more honest and make it clear they can only tell you about history and problems "reported to Carfax". They use to just imply they would tell you everything. I`ve run a number of family vehicles thru there just for laughs and you`d be amazed at the number of accidents, odometer rollbacks (Put in the wrong milage) etc it did'nt know about.

 

How are you guys finding out the histories, how much does it cost?

 

I bought the CARFAX report 3 years ago when I was looking for a car. I think it cost me $40 for unlimited VIN searches for a month.

 

Im the 4th owner. The first was a lady who owned it for less then a year. The second owner was a old man who rarely used it, the third owner was the second owners sons. He never did anything himself, lots of oil change reciets. Now I own it and it gets the love it needs.

 

to run a report costs about 30 bucks. I used Autocheck.com there is also carfax.com

The report will tell you about things like accidents, title transfers and discrepancies as well as how many owners, states it was registered and some other things.

It is a great resource for shopping around but I ran mine cause I was extremely curious.

 

I have a 2" file, on my car. Came with it when I got it. I am the third owner. '91 bought new in Florida till '97. (Kept at the owners summer place) '97 it was traded in for a new XJ, In Wisconsin. My brother worked at the car lot. Called my mother, She bought it with 43k on it. In 2008, I inherited it from her. with 64k on it. So I have all the paper work on it. And right now it's a t 67k.

 

Quoted for truth....

or the flat out mistakes they make....

Quick crap fax story....
I had an old Chevy farm truck that my dad owned for many years. We dropped a new engine into it, and wanted to sell it. The buyer had the unlimited Car fax thing. He ran the vin and called me pissed off. Yelling and carrying on that I was lied to him when I said the truck had never been in an accident and so forth. Tells me that carfax shows an accident that resulted in the truck getting a salvage title. I got him to bring me the report. When he did, the report did show an accident. Problem was.. the accident never occurred. During the supposed accident time, the truck was running around Dad's farm.


My Cherokee originally was sold in Wisconsin. The family lived in the are near the dealer, and traded it back to the same dealer as the one they bought it from. A buddy's sister worked there and bought it for her daughter to drive. The daughter hated it, so they sold it to another of my buddy's sisters. It got driven around for another year or so. But they started having a bunch of ticky-tacky stuff wrong with it. The owners were hilly-billy repair specialists. So when they started having issues with sensors, they wanted to sell it. I bought it from them for a nice low price.

 

second owner. first owner was my mother in law. she bought it new in '99. gave it to me for christmas 6-7 months ago. the jeep had never seen mud. heck i don't think it had ever seen grass. but i changed that.

 

In fact ALL reporting services, can only give information that is reported. But its better than nothing. And unless you are the original owner or get a vehicle from the OO, who is also honest. There is no way to get the true and complete history of any vehicle.

Take my Jeep for example. I know, based on Car fax, that I am the third owner. I know that the previous Owners had Most of the service and repairs done by either the dealer or a reporting repair shop. I can tell this by the mileage reports and timing of services. in know that it was not in any reported accidents. I know it was auctioned 2 times by dealers. But there will be no service reports from my ownership except for smog TESTs. I do ALL of my own repairs and service. The next owner if there is one will be SOL. When I bought my Jeep, I skipped on several rigs do to very spotty Carfax Info and negative reports. This is in addition to my own inspection of the vehicles.