Originally Posted by 02R6

About the warranty/recall work, I called PCNA regarding a car I do not own (though I am in negotiations to purchase) and they told me what dealership performed any such work. Then I called the dealership, told them what I was doing and, with the last six digits of the VIN, was able to obtain the information.


Here I did the same as above. If I knew what dealership did the service serviced I called them, told them my story and, again with the last six of the VIN, they gave me the service details. If I did not know what dealership serviced the car I called the big ones in the area I knew the car to be, went through my story and gave them the VIN, and they either told me whether or not they serviced it or who I might call next. Naturally this took a lot of time, but it was absolutely worth it as I was able to find out loads of information about the car.

In both cases (warranty/non-warranty) I did not have the current or previous owners contact any of the dealerships to release the information. Furthermore, only one dealership would not release the information while another dealership went so far as to give me the full name of one of the previous owners and yet another dealership told me what kind of (different) car the owner had on file with them.