How much weight do you give CarFax when buying a used auto? (from a dealer)

[dfkrug]

Like as has been said prior to this post, all the reported stuff is in carfax report, so that part is accurate. If i bought a vehicle, right now, get the carfax report and if it doesn't turn you off of the vehicle, on to the mechanic to check it out more thoroughly.

Last time I actually paid for a CarFax report, it was only $20 or so. Paying a mechanic for an inspection can be as little as $100. Both are well worth it, esp when you are buying something that costs many thousands. For vehicles listed on Cars.com, which is most of the dealer inventory in the US, pretty much ALL show CarFax reports.

CarFax reports have become much more useful in past years, now that many many businesses report to it. In my state, every smog check, and many commercial visits to a repair shop will be reported. That really helps the buyer see where the car has been and the mileage progression. Some states do safety checks every year or 2. If that is reported that's a good thing, too.

 

[aczlan]

KBB, Black Book, NADA all like to think they are the 'authority' on all values but they are not. They apply arbitrary formulas and ratios that may or may not accurately reflect the actual amount of monetary damages. A lot of factors can be involved. Of course, if everyone is willing to accept their arbitrary formula, so be it.

Worth noting, as I understand it, KBB uses average dealer asking price while Edmunds uses average selling price (as reported to the State DMV).
Especially for low volume vehicles, if 200 of a particular make, model, year of a vehicle are sold, a few cream puffs selling at 3x average price has the potential to bump up the price much more than with a higher volume vehicle (think Volvo 240 vs Honda Civic).

Aaron Z

 

[two_bit_score]

Last time I actually paid for a CarFax report, it was only $20 or so. Paying a mechanic for an inspection can be as little as $100. Both are well worth it, esp when you are buying something that costs many thousands. For vehicles listed on Cars.com, which is most of the dealer inventory in the US, pretty much ALL show CarFax reports.

CarFax reports have become much more useful in past years, now that many many businesses report to it. In my state, every smog check, and many commercial visits to a repair shop will be reported. That really helps the buyer see where the car has been and the mileage progression. Some states do safety checks every year or 2. If that is reported that's a good thing, too.

The popularity of CarFax is due to all the advertising they do.

 

[RickB]

The popularity of CarFax is due to all the advertising they do.

And the service they provide. Carfax is a tool, and like any tool the user has to know how to use its features.

 

[Ford850]

There was a local news story on TV last evening about a woman who bought a car some time back and didn't know the odometer had been rolled back. She was having issues with the car, but I didn't catch what the issues were. The part that caught my attention was how she eventually used Carfax to show the history of repairs, and it showed a point when the odometer dropped many tens of thousands of miles which proved someone rolled it backwards. She regretted not using Carfax before purchasing the car.

 

[dfkrug]

...she eventually used Carfax to show the history of repairs, and it showed a point when the odometer dropped many tens of thousands of miles which proved someone rolled it backwards.

Yes! That is exactly what I am talking about. Even without the reported repair history, the reported mileage (and location) over several years makes a CarFax report very useful.

 

[crazyal]

If there's a jump backwards in the mileage Carfax will show it and provide a warning. When I was looking I found a truck that clearly had a garage report the wrong mileage as it jumped down then back up when the next shop reported the work they did. If you didn't read the report all you would see is "Warning: Odometer discrepancy" and most likely assume the mileage was incorrect. It's nice that Carfax will fix it but I wonder if they are just fixing it on their computers or actually fixing it where the data is really stored. My guess is just on their computers.

 

[RickB]

The average shop business system has no provision for altering a settled or closed repair order.
That is a very good thing.

 

[two_bit_score]

The Fix is in with CarFax. Every time they “fix” something it compounds their unreliability.

 

[lostcause]

One thing to remember on this same topic is that if your vehicle is damaged but not totaled you should be getting compensation for that from the insurance company - at least if it's someone else who was at fault. I've never had this happen to me (yet) but was talking with someone a few years ago who had their vehicle hit by another driver causing repairable structural damage. along with getting the vehicle repairs paid by the other driver's insurance, they were compensated for future lost resale value due to the reporting of that damage. I'm not sure how well the compensation works, but whatever you get is better than getting nothing.