A little more info about CARFAX & AutoCheck

[RickOKC]

This story was on my local news last night. The station compared CARFAX against Autocheck reports on employee cars they knew had been damaged which showed neither service caught everything.

I thought the information about how problems make it to the reports was interesting.

(If the video doesn't work, the text is a narrative of the segment.)

Consumer Watch: The Truth Behind Crash Reports Like CARFAX (http://www.news9.com/Global/story.asp?S=13488327)

[Marlin]

Carfax has been a known scam for sometime. There is no phone number you can call. They have no contact info. Their guarantee only applies if they do not provide information that was recorded by the DMV. That is the ONLY way to get your money back, and that just isn't going to happen.
Same as any other purchase, you are on your own, do some reading, there are lots of good how tos out there for buying a car. You might get dirty doing the checks, but if you are spending what could be a significant chunk of change on a vehicle, isn't it worth doing some of your own reasearch and checking?

[circmand]

I think we even have a thread on here that bemoans the poor results for both. The email contact only Carfax is the epitomy of screw you customer service. Just think of all the non reported accidents that people who work on cars themselves do not report. I think the realization of how bad they suck is a big reason for all the money they now spend on advertising. Of course there is no way to get info on unreported problems so that is a big reason the expense is a waste of money. A better solution is paying $$$ to a trusted mechanic to look for signs of repairs or other hidden problems.

[mdwyer]

Yeah, this is one of those well-known secrets, I think. I was in an accident in my car -- I T-Boned a car that turned in front of me. It was enough to tweak the frame. It was repaired at a factory body shop AND had a police report made against it...

But the Carfax is clean.

A clean CarFax doesn't mean anything. But I still get them, because a dirty CarFax might mean something.

[Gussie2000]

The media is one of the most powerfull tools to subdue people's mind to believe something is good bombarding our eyes thousands of times with their ads on TV,radio and news papers,your mind becomes actually "programmed" to listen to those ads and believe that those are good and trusthworthy.

But if you rethink about this situation with such companies as carfax or autocheck you got to understand that they job rely on the info that is provided to them from different sources such as DMV,bodyshops,autoinsurance,etc.

That's why you can't rely on or trust these companies because they cannot provide you with all and/or the right info to decide if the car you are looking into is the right one.

[Ldub]

http://www.vehicross.info/forums/showthread.php?t=9561&highlight=carfax

[vt_maverick]

A clean CarFax doesn't mean anything. But I still get them, because a dirty CarFax might mean something.

In the end your best bet is to not trust any one source, but to take a look at everything. There are many reported cases where CarFax not only missed accidents, but actually recorded accidents when there were none. Personally I won't give CarFax another dime of my money because THEY ARE AN INTENTIONALLY FRAUDULENT COMPANY. But that doesn't mean AutoCheck is the complete answer either. Order up the AutoCheck as a first line of defense when researching a vehicle, but then be sure to do a detailed inspection yourself with our checklist, or if the seller will allow it, have it looked over by a qualified shop. Even better, have a dealership like CarMax take a look. Their buyers go through a year's worth of training to learn how to spot damaged vehicles by details as small rough spots in the paint on door jams or slightly mis-aligned interior panels.