CarFax vs. AutoCheck vs. others

[BobsArmory]

I am in the market for a used car and will be buying a history report for 1 or 2 cars from private sellers. I would like to use one of these history reporting services to make sure I am not getting a salvage title or some other major problem with the cars that I am looking at.

Do you all have any preferences when it comes to these companies?

 

[dparm]

For basic title info (registration, title changes, etc), they're all the same. They pull from DMV records.

 

[scurvy]

I've seen AutoCheck return a few more vital pieces of information than others, leading one prospective buyer to discover major league VIN swapping onto a different car body. For example on another forum there's an ongoing recent thread about a car listed as blue and having 66k miles wound up having its engine and ECU transplanted into the body of a salvage titled white car of the same year but with 366k miles on it. PM me for a link, if you're interested.

As far as basic registration information as dparm mentioned, they're all about the same.

 

[MBS500]

My Previous MB- Autocheck screwed up. When I was buying it, I used carfax. Clean record, some maintenance, It had 4 owner before me. First owner had it leased in 98 fir 4 years and only drove about 650 miles. Anyway Autocheck screwed up miles. First record was there 5k somethings miles. Then it starts from 140miles like carfax. Also they put odo warning because of that. How come brand new Mercedes came with 5000miles for lease? So because of that Carmax said, we cannot offer more that $2k for it.

 

[Bryankkkk]

I'll do your carfaxes if you wanna save some money...

no this doesn't mean ill do them for everyone.

 

[termigator]

I was given a free Carfax when I bought a 2006 Honda Odyssey back in December 2011. It showed a great deal of information concerning the maintenance of the vehicle, but it wasn't nearly as complete as their commercials would have you believe. According to the report, the minivan was never in an accident, but a while after I bought the vehicle, I noticed that the both bumpers had been repainted (The rest of the car looked faded compared to the bumpers under certain angles). Also, the driver side window had been replaced(the glass did not say Honda or had the Honda logo like the other window glasses). I know that doesn't necessarily mean it was in an accident, but I definitely think something happened to the vehicle and was never reported.

Your best bet would be to take it to a mechanic you trust and have the car inspected. I think you'll find out a lot more about the car than any paper report. Just my .02.

 

[HM12460]

I don't think any of them are all conclusive. That said, I favor auto check over carfax.

 

[KitaCam]

CarFax misreported damage (left instead of right), and omitted replaced door outer-shell...

 

[FoxS]

On the few I have seen, Carfax was better than Autocheck.

Note there is now a "My Carfax" service that enables you to see reported maintenance free of charge for any vehicle. Their idea is to get you to add your own or other non reported maintenance as another source of info for their charged reports.

 

[dparm]

How many times do we have to bring up the "damage" thing about CarFax on this site? Not all states report accidents to CarFax, hence it is NOT a reliable source for telling if a car was repainted at some point.

Ugh.

 

[MBS500]

Originally Posted By: Bryankkkk
I'll do your carfaxes if you wanna save some money...

no this doesn't mean ill do them for everyone.

I can do some too till the end of the month.

 

[grndslm]

I'm wondering if anybody's ever tried this website....

http://vindatacheck.com/

???

I emailed them about doing multiple VINs, since it gets cheaper per VIN with multiple lookups. But I never got a response. Just asked how the VINs should be separated... space, comma, etc... but nothing.

Honestly, it's not worth a $3 gamble when I can see the paint looks good, the lines are straight, there's no obvious rust, etc. Heck, I went with a friend to buy a $7,000 Ford Mustang (2006, the new body style, with 82k miles)... that had over $7,000 worth of body work done at Advanced Collision. Was it worth doing a carfax on this car when the thing looks flawless besides 1 or 2 burn holes from the previous owners smoking cigarettes inside?? Not IMHO. The fluids checked out, and it could handle driving on the Interstate, plus it even had good tires. Why waste $30 on a Carfax when the car, itself, looks flawless??

There was another cheap VIN check site, but I can't remember what it was. Less than $10 a pop, tho. Just not really worth it to me if the body & mechanical stuff checks out.

CarFax also has a free "Flood Title Scan" for cars with flooded titles. Doesn't assure you that the vehicle HASN'T been in light flooding, but a flooded title is potentially worse because your insurance company will only pay you close to 60% of book value if you end up getting in an accident. http://www.carfax.com/flood

 

[grndslm]

Here's another FREE vin check that seems to be fairly comprehensive, in testing "Theft Record" and "Total Loss Record"...

National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) "Vin Check"

They also point to the "National Motor Vehicle Title Information System" @ vehiclehistory.gov, which provides a report forjust $2.00!!!!

I'll presume that if everything is clear on the NICB check, then the NMVTIS check will likely only provide odometer readings for that $2.

Hopefully somebody will spare a fiver and take screenshots of both VinDataCheck and the vehiclehistory.gov NMVTIS reports and paste a scrubbed copy here for those who are interested in such services.

 

[grndslm]

This thread's a few months old, but the information is still pretty valuable.

I'll be looking for a good vin checker very soon and wondering if anybody is willing to check out what some of these paid reports look like? Maybe take some screenshots for us??

-- https://mvscusa.com/products/nmvtis/ ($2.00)
-- http://www.experian.com/automotive/automotive-autocheck-nmvtis.html ($0.25 cents per VIN, but this might be for dealers only... anybody want to make up a "fake" dealership for us and see if you still get access??)

The following sites are free, making the above sites potentially worthless if the vehicle doesn't have branded issues yet checks out to be just fine:

-- https://www.nicb.org/theft_and_fraud_awareness/vincheck
-- http://www.carfax.com/flood

And I'm thinking that the nicb.org link invalidates the necessity to use the carfax.com/flood link, but don't quote me on that. It would be awesome if that one link invalidated the paid links, too.... but nobody knows until there's some screenshots.

 

[doitmyself]

Originally Posted By: dparm
How many times do we have to bring up the "damage" thing about CarFax on this site? Not all states report accidents to CarFax, hence it is NOT a reliable source for telling if a car was repainted at some point.

Ugh.


Agreed. BobsArmory, Over the past 15 plus years I've had major collision work completed at Snethkamps at least 3 times and none of it ever showed up on Carfax. One repair was almost $10,000 of collision work.

 

[grndslm]

Originally Posted By: grndslm
-- https://www.nicb.org/theft_and_fraud_awareness/vincheck
-- http://www.carfax.com/flood

And I'm thinking that the nicb.org link invalidates the necessity to use the carfax.com/flood link, but don't quote me on that. It would be awesome if that one link invalidated the paid links, too.... but nobody knows until there's some screenshots.

I can confirm that the NICB theft and total loss does not mention flooded vehicles. I wonder if "total loss" even means what I think it means. Perhaps it's possible for a car to have flood damage but not have been a "total loss" in that manner, or not having a flood-branded title.

Either way, the other sites might be worth $2.25 to check them out, but I'll probably stick to the two free sites I've mentioned and say that's really what it's all about. You don't want to pay for insurance for a flooded vehicle, because even if you use uninsured motorist coverage because it's not your fault.... the payout will be greatly reduced, probably less than half of a non-branded title.

Pretty easy to see if a car has been repainted by getting at an angle with the sun directly behind you and looking for trash in the paint, little specks and what not. And make sure the gaps around the hoods, doors, trunks, etc. are all even and uniform. Even still, accidents aren't what I'm really looking for. I just don't want a branded title. That would be a major buzz kill.