Does anyone have Carfax access? I need to check out one car and Carfax wants $25. Or does anyone know of any other site where I can check a car's history?
TIA!

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Mary

I can't help you with getting the report, but wanted to mention this.

When I sold my 4 year old VW Jetta, I asked the dealer for a trade in value. He had me fill out a form that asked if I had been in an accident, I told the truth, I had over $2000 in damages to my car.

He then ran a carfax report right in front of me and it showed no accidents! I asked him why, not wanting to get in trouble later if I decided to trade it in. He said he was not sure.

I filed the accident with a police report onsite and the other driver got a ticket. Her insurance paid my $2000 bill.

I could not believe it did not show up! I lost all faith in CARFAX after that.

Paulette

I agree with Paulette. I bought a used car after running a carfax report and the car came up clean. Two months later, the DMV discovered it had been stolen 10 months earlier, and came and took it away. Carfax didn't know it was a stolen car and takes no responsibility. Don't waste your time or your money on carfax.

did you file accident with the DMV?

I do not have an account with them but I do know someone that works at a local dealership. When they pull a report, they can exclude any information they don't want you to see, such as accidents.

Diane

I agree with the others. I think we had a thread on this before a while back. Some accidents aren't mentioned. My son wrecked his Corvette, did over $15,000 in damages ( it was eventually repaired but he didn't own it then). Anyway, he saw it on a car lot for sale and just being curious went in and asked about it and they told him it hadn't been wrecked. We were buying another vehicle at the time and had purchased CarFax to check out some vehicles. So while we had it, we put in the VIN number for the Corvette and sure enough, that accident wasn't on there!! That Corvette had frame damage and everything!

So we don't trust CarFax anymore.

Thanks so much for all y'all's advice, I'm glad I didn't pay the $25 - I wish there was some reliable way to find out about a used car - it almost sounds like a crap-shoot.

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Mary

You could ask the dealer for the name of the previous owner. It should be on some papers in the car somewhere. And then call the previous owner.

I don't put a lot of 'stock' in Carfax either. We are currently trying to sell our minivan. Someone called and wanted the VIN# to run Carfax on it. I decided to buy a report on our van, just so we would know what was on there and would be prepared for any questions that came up. We had two major door dents (I hit a pole at the drive-up bank) repaired and that does not show up on the report, however the routine service we had done at the same time does show up. The damage was all cosmetic, so it's not like it will affect how the vehicle runs or safety or anything, but it was body work.

Sarah.......mom to Jason & Devin