CBC Marketplace report on CARFAX accuracy
 

carfax is a waste of time

my dad was checking out some cars, so he bought a one week membership. just for the hell of it, ran the VIN of his own van which he had owned since new, and had been in a massive accident 4 years prior. Van had been repaired, all through ICBC yet it had a squeaky clean history. Plus side, is that Carfax had no problem refunding :P

carfax is more for cars that were registered in the states

They said that their competitors had more accurate information but did not mention what the company really was.

LOL Fucking CarFax Rep had a dumb smile on his face the whole interview and kept blaming insurance agencies for not reporting claims to CarFax. What an idiot.

i guess u cant rely on just 1 tool when u plan on buying a car from the states.

That was a good article, very informative!

I never knew it had Canadian info, although the Martketplace report indicates that it does/should have it. This is good information though, I'll need to let everyone know to not put so much trust in Carfax.

What a shady dealer though. I hope the guy gets everything resolved (Xterra).

here is the thing, if the dealership uses carfax themselves to check if the car is ok thru auction. then they themselves might not know of the damages.

if they are one of those dealerships that buys wrecks, fixes them up, then uses carfax as a selling tool, then ok, ur fucked, and they are fuckers for doing it.

You're not distinctly not fucked. Anyone selling a car with over $3,000 worth of damage done to it is obliged to inform the buyers of the damage. Using a clean carfax does not absolve them of this.

And the CBC could not mention the competitors name because that would qualify as an endorsement, which has legal ramifications. But, for those that are wondering; they used Carproof.

If you're looking at buying a car; it's money WELL spent. I have histories on ALL my vehicles, and it's complete from the day of purchase. An ex GF of mine was having trouble with a shitbox Jetta she bought for 10K... the dealer said it'd never had any significant damage, but not a single body panel was properly aligned and the interior was falling apart. Carproofed it; and it had four accidents totaling over 12K. $60 bucks is nothing for the piece of mind.

Carproof is the best one.

I wonder why Carproof is not as well known, or as popular?

i watched that carfax thing on tv, some good info

This shouldn't be too surprising for most people.

Yeah Carproof is the competitors they were making references to. I recognized the menus when there were scrolling though on the laptop in the van. Carproof is $60 a report which is money well spent I think. But it gets expensive when you're Carproofing many cars :cry:

It's useless even getting info out of the U.S. on cars... so many states wash titles (like Texas for one) when they are registered state-to-state... every car I ever brought up said it was accident free and then when you get underneath and start looking at things you can see where there had been damage before or panels had been painted etc.... not to mention if they don't claim it -> it's not on record.

I even had one of my cars the guy gave me receipts for vadalism damage (someone baseball batted the hood, windshield, front end) he had fixed through his insurance and it didn't show up on carfax despite being $2000+

Buyer beware :)

is carproof good for USA cars as well? their site looks to be focused primarily on Canadian and local cars.

Sorry I meant another service got it mixed up with carproof, my bad...

I think the only thing Carfax is good for is verifying mileage (to a certain extent) and also number of owners or where the vehicle has spent its life...

I remember one time I was looking at a car, the dealer said it was 1 owner, I check the Carfax on it and it had like 7 different owners, had been in 5 states and at one point when someone in the military owned it, it got exported to Germany for 2 years and then back to the U.S. again!! It was hilarious... 1 owner my ass :p

I have used www.autocheck.com
and another one will be ICBC accident claim report I guess

i don't know if it was just me, but i had problems with the carfax mileage reports, they seem to rely on aircare and dealer service history for mileage, and if either or neither had been done, there is nothing to report. i generally ended up with registration or insurance renewal dates and not much else.

How can they do this? I am always looking at vehicles in the US..

^
I read a long and convoluted bunch of stuff a few years back, but basically one way around accident or even rebuilt titling in the U.S. is through Texas, you can register the car there, then register it back in your home state again and it wipes the title because Texas doesn't require any declarations about the vehicle before issuing a clean title...... I wish I knew the exact ins and outs, there are other states as well, I believe Florida was another "wipe it clean" state.

Thats crazy.. so technically.. every vehicle registered in the state of Texas could be accident free?

Why doesn't the US use a universal system?

Carfax's mileage verification is complete garbage. Car I was looking at had its mileage checked... Back in 2003.

^
You know, there is a reason I put (to a certain extent) after that comment..........