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Looking for a new ( used) work truck. I never buy brand new anymore. Found one and I did the free car fax and one site says 29 reports another says 19. Without paying for it is it even worth the 30-40 bucks to get the report or move on to the next truck.
I had a buddy who used to run car fax vin do for me but he no longer deals in cars.
Should I bother with that many reports or move on to another one. Truck is in Reno so I would have to drive there to see it.
There's no way of knowing what those reports are unless you get the full report. Could be a titles and registrations, an accident or two, maintenance records, etc.
Don't believe the CarFax. They do not include the complete history of a vehicle. I traded my 2011 BMW and when they showed me the CarFax, it did not include an accident and repairs that were done over a year ago at a BMW dealership.
The Carfax is kind of like a credit report or criminal background check for a car. Just because it all pops up clean, doesn't guarantee anything. All the same, you would still run that information before renting a property to someone or hiring them to work in a bank.
Carfax basically mines data and collates it. Lately, they've expanded the data that gets mined to go as far as collecting many basic maintenance records. It catches most accidents, but if there isn't an accident report, insurance claim, etc, there is no paper trail for them to report; thus, if you back into a pole and hand the bodyman a wad of cash, no report on the carfax. All the same, if you end up in dire financial straits, borrow money from a friend and pay promptly, it wouldn't be on a credit report that your lights almost got turned off and your car almost got repo'd.
CarFax is a help as it will show incidents, but know that they are far FAR from all-inclusive.
I was shopping for a new or used car a while back, and subscribed to Carfax's 30 days of unlimited car reports.
As long as I was checking out prospective used cars, I went ahead and got a report on my current (just totaled) car, just for the heck of it.
I was the first and only owner, and it had previously been in 2 minor fender-benders ($2-3k) and 1 medium ($5k) rear-end. Since all happened several years in the past, and all had been repaired by 'the other guy's" insurance, at a dealership or full service body-shop, they should have all been on the books and reported by CarFax. Only one was.
Bottom line? If CarFax shows you some problems, that's useful information (and worth the price), but there certainly could be other events not listed.
Get it inspected!
There is nothing wrong with checking CarFax to see what it says. The mistake people make is in believing that CarFax is 100% accurate. For the most part information on the report you get is correct, it just might not be all of the information for that particular vehicle. It can also get very wonky on the accident records. A vehicle could have had a moderate bumper scrape professionally repaired and it will show up as an "accident" and look the same as a vehicle that had $10,000 worth of damage in an actual accident.
When it comes to the number of entries on the report that is influenced by many things. When a vehicle is first put up for sale, sold and registered, that can easily account for 6 or more records on the report. If the owner then changed addresses, that could add another record. If the vehicle is traded in and then put up for sale again, that can be another 4 records. Maintenance records can also eat up many entries. Most dealers report any and all services, so you could easily have 8 records for oil changes. Ultimately there is no way to tell much by just the record count. Usually one owner vehicles will have 5-15 records. Two owner vehicles will have 15-25 and three or more will have 25+.
The above is not a hard and fast rule. If you are buying from a dealer, they should have no reason not to provide the CarFax or something similar. If you are buying private, I'm not sure it's necessarily worth your time versus just putting the money towards getting a proper inspection from a mechanic you trust which is something you should do regardless of what the CarFax says. However, if there is a long trip involved to see a potential vehicle, then it might be worth the money to run the CarFax before making the trip. Major red flags on the CarFax are enough indicator that you want to skip that vehicle.
Carfax should be just a starting point.
Regardless of what carfax says, take it in for a PPI.
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