[RPM]

I just got a CARFAX on my 968. Interesting results...



The car has been hit twice in the last three years (very frustrating to say the least). A Nissan Pathfinder backed into me in a parking lot in 2005 causing about $3,000 damage to the right rear and last winter an old Ford rear-ended me causing about $1,000 of damage to the rear bumper. Only the rear-ender was reported to the police, who happened to pull up just after it happened -and wound up arresting the poor illegal immigrant driving the car on an outstanding warrant. Surprisingly, he had current insurance!.



Only one of these accidents is on the CARFAX report - the one that has a police report. This confirms what I have suspected for years, going back to when I worked as a car salesman: CARFAX does not access insurance company databases.



What does that mean for the car-buying public? A recent CARFAX report is no guarantee that a car has not had significant accident damage. It just provides part of the picture. Only an experienced appraiser who knows how to look for evidence of paint and repair can say for certain whether a car has been in an accident or not.



Does this mean a CARFAX is useless? Absolutely not! But dealerships will trot them out on a used car deal as proof the car has never been damaged. They may even honestly believe it...

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[Fox944]

CarFax reports basically tell you an Accident has never been reported. I used to be the regional pre-owned manager for heartland auto group and have appraised many many cars.



If the cars is stripped and all the panels are dipped in acid & then the car is primered and painted from scratch by a pro, no one will know the cars been painted.....and paint meters wont pick up on it as all the panels would give the same reading. This is an extremely rare situation however.

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[flash]

i looked at a number of cars when i was looking for mine - i ran a carfax on every one of them - about half of the cars had damage that was not on the carfax report



my only conclusion was that not everything gets reported - i imagine that if somebody only had liability insurance, they could opt for that if it didn't involve anybody else



scenario: out playing on a canyon, car runs off the road and hits a tree - owner tows car home and has it fixed, but does not report it because he only has liability insurance and would have to pay for the repair anyway

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[Straight Four]

sister had someone try to make a left turn in front of her jeep liberty at 50 miles an hour. offset head on collision. no airbags deployed (liberty bags are mounted in teh frame and are INSANE to set off.) her jeep picked up the chevy blazer and flipped it onto its roof and sent it spinning down the side of the road. the guy had no licence, no insurance, and had borrowed teh car from someone else who barely knew him.

the lt for charlotte had to show up to the scene b/c the guy w/o a licence was trying to claim racism from teh officers (he was black.) something about rough handling or s/th like that. 10k of damage to the front end of the jeep, it pushed the motor out, and the rest of teh subframe had to be replaced on one side.



work was done by a dealership, sent back twice to get the hood resprayed till it looked right.

sold half a year later as a brand new jeep liberty to a dealership with 5k miles on it.



carfax had nothing but one oil change from a dealership listed on it.

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