Last year, Brandon's car was destroyed in an accident, and he went shopping for a new-to-him vehicle. He found a nice 2008 Honda Civic at a good price with a clean Carfax report. Sweet deal! Now Brandon's in the market for a new car. At another dealership, he learned that the Civic isn't worth as much as he had thought as a trade-in, because the vehicle had sustained severe body damage in an accident, then was rebuilt. How did they know this? The now-updated Carfax report, of course.
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I've been telling people for a long time of how much a rip off Carfax is.
ReplyDeleteI know because I have run vehicles on Carfax that I KNEW had salvage history. I was actually looking at a Salvage Certificate and the reports came up clean!
The information usually only gets to CarFax once the vehicle is re-registered.
If you want to be on the safe side, when buying a used car, call your insurance company and ask them to run the VIN#. Since most salvage vehicles are Salvage because the insurance company is the one who determines whether the vehicle is totalled.
Having said all that, totalled does not mean the same thing as it used to. Ask your insurance agent about that too.
In Maryland, if the vehicle starts out with a Salvage Certificate and is converted to a title, the title WILL be marked. No exeptions. It doesn't matter how minor the damage was. Once marked, always marked. It didn't used to be this way in Maryland. Even if it ends up titled in another state, it will still show up in the vehicle history through MVA. It doesn't go away in their records.
If you're going to look at a previously wrecked car, there are some who sell them, at a much lower cost, who fix the right and will tell you upfront exactly what was done to the vehicle.
Unfortunately, there are also some that won't tell you and that hurts the legitimate ones.
I currently drive a vehicle that was salvaged. It's the same make and model of my previous one, just a few years newer, so I would be aware of differences. I cannot tell it was ever damaged. No noises, no problems, no abnormal tire wear, nothing. I've been driving it for over 5 years and have had NO problems whatsoever.
Bottom line is buy from trustworthy businesses and you'll be fine. Once you start buying from someone shady, you're only asking for problems.
Both Carfax and Autocheck use the same data provider as NHTSA. So there's no difference between them.
ReplyDelete