Yc911Kid

I'm in the process of selling my car recently & comes to my surprise there's a newly added minor damage record to the car's carfax record. The said damage is dated 4years back & when I got the car 2yrs ago it's not there. When I nearly sold it about a year ago someone pulled it & carfax was still clean without any hit. I'm very shocked/surprised by this obviously as when I did the PPI before purchase there's 0 sign of any damage be it paint/underside/interior whatsoever. I'd like to believe this is an error from carfax god know why. But in case if there was such a damage shouldn't carfax be liable for updating their record so late & cost me $$$? Curious to see if anyone here has seen/dealt with this headache. I just filed a request to carfax to investigate on this mysterious damage record. TIA!

BSheppard

This happened to a buddy’s Raptor a few years ago. Damage popped up on the carfax and he could not figure out why.

Come to find out he ordered some small parts from the Ford counter using his Vin number. He was buying them to have them painted and then installed so he would not have missing pieces on the truck while said parts were being painted.

He traded the truck and took the loss before figuring out what happened.

Yc911Kid

Thanks for pitch in. This is even worse as i've no idea what happed 4yrs ago & why it only shows up recently

168glhs1986

shops sell records for money to carfax. I had a shop once spot something on my car and report it. They didn't even do any work on it. Not sure how much they got paid.

You should be able to get it removed fairly easily.

Yc911Kid

Under my ownership nothing happened other than regular service. Can't figure out how a "damage from 2020" added all of a sudden

mwar99

These are the types of reasons CarFax should not be relied on fully for information about a car. Very frustrating that it could show something that never happened. And it also makes something that was minor a larger obstacle to overcome. It's like home values and information on Zillow and other websites, people take it as the truth even if it might not be.

Tpup

I bough a used Lexus from a dealer in TX. Carfax was clean and I had the car inspected by a 3rd party; clean result. 3 years later I went to trade it and found out it had an "accident" that it was reported months after the fact (as I recall 9 most later). During that time the original deal fixed it, sold it at auction to the TX dealer, and they sold it to me. I took a huge hit on trade in after I purchased a "clean" Carfax car. Carfax is as useless imo.

Carfax gets data from someone else to they are protected under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

josephvman

Did you buy the car pre-owned from a dealership, Porsche or independent? Most dealerships will print a copy of the Carfax and/or Autocheck reports when selling a pre-owned car, and have you sign them to acknowledge that they disclosed these reports. If you did sign a clean Carfax when you bought the car, you might have some recourse with the dealership. I'd have a qualified bodyshop check the car for any signs of accident repair, and if they don't find anything you might be able to contact Carfax and show them this, and ask them to provide their proof of whatever triggered their accident entry. If they can't, you can probably get that removed by Carfax.

I'd run an Autocheck report on the car, just out of curiosity. I've seen accidents show on one and not the other. I've also seen a lot of obvious Carfax errors. I have a client with a handful of Ferrari's, and he was in a moderately bad accident in one of them. He provided the police on the scene with his insurance card, and the lazy idiot who wrote the accident report used the VIN off of his insurance card rather than physically checking the car, and it was the VIN from one of his other Ferrari's. At a point in the future I was in the process of buying that car, saw the Carfax, and were able to figure out how that error occurred. Carfax did make a correction, but it took a lot of documentation and affidavit's of fact.

BryanCO

Isn’t that exactly what Carfax is supposed to do - provide a potential buyer with information about a vehicle they are considering purchasing? Sucks that it took nine months for it to show up (benefiting the next purchaser) and that whoever did the PPI didn’t identify the work.

silvertige

I had a 2010 Toyota Sienna for 7 years from new. When I wanted to do a private sale I ran a carfax and to my surprise it showed accident history on the front end 4 years into my ownership, which, obviously never occurred. Turns out the vin was entered incorrectly by insurance/ police report or whatever, when the accident happened, but the damage was done. I was trying to sell a car with "story." Well... it was a minivan. I sold it to carmax and called it a day, lol.

Either way, I had a carfax with an accident that never happened and there was a corresponding car out there with significant damage that was carfax clean.

Benedict295

I bought my 2019 Voodoo Blue Touring with minor damage. I have the information and photos from owner 1. The carfax stated "Minor/Moderate" when I bought it. It was recently upgraded to "Moderate/Major." I found this out after I put it up for sale. I naturally checked auto check and that interestingly changed to two of the same accident reported on different dates. Autocheck promptly corrected it and now states 1-minor accident. Still fighting with carfax. Interestingly, I had a potential buyer send a professional PPI guy to check over my car. Every panel paint metered out as expected, as only the pumper was replaced. Amusingly, that PPI showed up on my carfax!

Yc911Kid

wow It’s pretty eye-opening for all the carfax BS, thanks for sharing gents I’ll see how it goes with my dispute. I’ve sent them reports from 2022&2023( both were clean then) Also during ppi underside/paint all checked out no issues is found

itrsteve

I ran into this once before. Upon purchasing the Carfax showed an event but was minor at best, the little Fox assured me not to be worried.

Then years down the road I pulled the Carfax and it was reading rather severe from that previous event. Their answer was that they couldn't control when data is provided from their sources and I got caught in the middle. I went as far to look up police records, contact the insurance companies, etc... The best they could surmise was the final claim costs from insurance were delayed and that's what they base the severity of the incident from - which is lightly misleading if you drive a car with a high salvage value and expensive replacement parts.