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We are looking to trade in our leased Lexus for a different model. The dealer ran a car fax and found out there there are two accidents on the report. We know of one. I parked my car at a grocery store and came out to find that somebody side swiped it, so we filed a report. There have been no other accidents.
Could the report be wrong? We are waiting to get the dates of the accidents.
Of course it could.
Unfortunately, all too many people are charmed by Carfax's advertising and do not realize that their reports are known for errors of several types:
Real problems (accidents/mechanical breakdowns/salvage titles) are not always reported.
Incidents are recorded inaccurately, due to a mistake in the reported VIN, so an accident that is attributed to one car could actually have taken place with another car.
So, my best advice is as follows:
If Carfax reports negative information, RUN away from the deal, just in case the report is accurate.
If Carfax shows a positive report for a car, have that car inspected by a competent independent mechanic of your choice in order to determine if there is unreported accident damage and/or evidence of lax maintenance.
The carfax is only as good as the data being entered into their system. If the damage you mentioned was entered twice, once when the claim was made, and once by the repair facility, you might have two claims...the other claim could be totally in error, entered by an individual who messed up typing in the VIN.
Did the dealer show you the report? Or are you buying him at face value while he's feeding you a line of bull?
As posted, a carfax report is only as good as what is reported....however it would not surprise me if a dealer pulled a made up carfax out of their heiny-holes in an attempt to swindle you into thinking your vehicle is not as good condition as you might think.
Of course it's also possible that if you purchased your current vehicle thru a dealer, they might have fudged their carfax to not disclose the issue with the vehicle, if one ever existed.
The carfax is only as good as the data being entered into their system. If the damage you mentioned was entered twice, once when the claim was made, and once by the repair facility, you might have two claims...the other claim could be totally in error, entered by an individual who messed up typing in the VIN.
No one enters data into Carfax. Instead Carfax scours/scrounges/mines data from publicly available sources.
So if their sources include two reports, right or wrong, Carfax will report it.
It's hard to give any more advice without seeing the information from the carfax.
Accident/police reports appear as separate line items from collision repair on a carfax report. Also, I've noticed that the police reports show up pretty often on cars with damage histories, but the collision repair work at the body shop shows up far less frequently.
It's hard to give any more advice without seeing the information from the carfax.
Accident/police reports appear as separate line items from collision repair on a carfax report. Also, I've noticed that the police reports show up pretty often on cars with damage histories, but the collision repair work at the body shop shows up far less frequently.
The collision repair data is rarely available because in most states a garage doesn't have a place to send repair data. Many states don't record state inspection in a database available to the public.
If the data isn't in a public database, Carfax can't get it. Notice there is never any insurance data? It is because insurance companies hold all that data.
I wouldn't be surprised. Carfax is a nice tool, but it's far from perfect. I doubt it would be a keystroke type error because VINs have check digits in them. But it could be something like multiple entries for the same incident.
My advice is for you to get your hands on the report yourself, then do some more investigation.
Could the report be wrong? We are waiting to get the dates of the accidents.
You bet they can be wrong, a few years ago i bought a used car from a major dealer,it was supposed to be a demonstrator, carfax said car was never in an accident, after a few months the car started having major problems and was basically falling apart at 20K, a private inspection by a local automobile protection agency revealed the car had been in a major wreck..A threatened law suit got the dealer to reimburse most of my purchase price ..My suggestion is get the carfax report as its kinda cheap but dont take a lack of accident on it to mean the car was never in an accident..Your best bet is a thorough inspection by an independent mechanic, many larger cities will have mechanics who will offer this service as a mobile service and come to the car..
As an example a service like this. http://www.lemonprotector.com/area.html
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