I am in the search to purchase a 996. There are very few cars that meet my specific desires here locally right now. I found this '99 Cab on Ebay that is near Sacramento. It generally meets my desires: '99, black, cab, 62k miles, and asking price around $24k. Those parameters would work for me generally but the strange Car Fax and Experian bother me. Here is a link if interested. [L=LINK]http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1999-911-CABRIOLET_W0QQitemZ200422150918QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_Cars_Trucks?hash=it em2eaa175306[/L]

I post this for general conversatioin if nothing else. I realize Car Fax isn't perfect, I realize Experian isn't perfect and I realize buying a 10 year old car is bound to find lots of imperfections. The VIN, if you are interested, is WP0CA2998XS655352

Anyway, according to the Experian this car has had 6 owners and no accidents.

According to Carfax it has had 4 owners and HAS had an accident.

The Carfax also notes that the car had an automatic transmission fluid flush... but it's a manual transmission car. I assume just the wrong box got checked when someone inputted the work that was done!?

The seller knows nothing of an accident as it was before his time. I should add that I have spoken to the seller and he sounds very nice. Not trying to bad mouth this guy at all.

The only thing about the seller I don't like is he said he changed the rear name plate, but the one he changed to is an "S" and I didn't think they made S's in 1999!? I am a little **** retentive and wouldn't want an S on the back if it's not an S car. Oh ya, and I asked if he knew anything about if the car had an RMS problem and he replied "what's RMS?"

Again, not sure I really have a question or a point other than to say CarFax and Experian are guides but apparently not 100% accurate.

 

I just looked at a '98 Mercedes SL for my sister-in-law. The dealer proudly provided a 'clean' Carfax. I then showed him in detail that both the front and the rear of the car had been replaced, the front rather badly with overspraw and chewed up bolts and fasteners. Then I found what looked to clearly be frame machine marks on the undercarriage.

Bottom line: More affluent owners can afford to repair damaged cars without resorting to insurance claims, for a variety of reasons.

Nothing can take the place of a good mechanic's pre-purchase inspection. It will trump a Carfax anytime.

 

6 owners seems very high to me, the rear badge can be easily changed out.GL

 

I don't do car fax stuff but....could be the loan company or two were figured as owners. Maybe even dealerships that had it for sale after a trade in.

 

I own a small dealership, CarFax is basically a big giant marketing ploy that gets consumers to believe it is the end all be all regarding the history of a car. And got forbid CarFax makes a mistake, it's like trying to turn back time getting a mistake fixed. They will show dealers flipping the title to their home state as a new "owner," I've seen odometer "rollbacks" of under 100 miles when it's clear what really happened is the title got flipped after the auction reported the sale day mileage. Try explaining that to CarFax. Rationale alone would dictate no one would go through the trouble to roll back an odometer, then roll it back 100 miles. I've seen cars with replaced bumpers simply have ACCIDENT come up on the report, I've seen cars with replaced body panels come back as clean. Rely on CarFax to verify it has a clean title, the rest of the info is sketchy at best.