Bought an Infiniti years ago and the Carfax was clean. Tried to sell it to Carmax and it had frame damage.

 

A few years ago I bought a 2006 M3 Coupe. It was loaded and only had 13k miles on it. Clean Carfax. I sold the car in 2012 to a private buyer who happened to own a small used car lot. His kid wanted it. When they came to look at the car they went over the body panels with a paint meter and the left front fender was showing thicker paint by about 2-3 mils than the rest of the body. He began accusing me of trying to sell them a car that had been wrecked. I told him to check Carfax. Still no report of an accident but clearly the left front fender had had paint work. Point being, it's not that reliable. There are at least two 997 S's that I am currently considering and both have had body work. So long as the repair job was relatively minor and done well, it doesn't really matter if it is a driver. Unfortunately, what everyone has already mentioned, Carfax has irrepairably altered the used car landscape. Now, if the car has "accident" history most people run from it. They have substituted their own judgment for a report made by some guy with his name on his shirt and accepted it as gospel. I, for one, make no such assumption. The upside for the savy used car buyer is that you can buy an absolutely wonderful used car at a really great price. The down side is for the seller who unknowingly bought a used car that purportedly had a "clean" history at a price comensurate with said history and is now trying to sell a perfectly good car that has a "broken toy" stigma attached to it. Personally, I hate Carfax.

 

Well said. It has become an unfortunate substitute for common sense. What really amazes me - I've sold cars where I've disclosed paintwork, but all people care about is the clean Carfax. WTF?

 

My wife told me yesterday about one of her girlfriends. She damaged her front bumper on a curb, insurance paid about a grand to replace it on her Honda CRV. So the other day she went to trade her nearly new CRV on a new one, and the dealer said he could only give her about a fourth of the value because the CarFax said "frame damage", and he would have to wholesale it off, as the advertising "show me the CarFax" would make it worth very little on his retail lot. She was stunned.

I wonder how information gets into the CarFax file.

All the best.

 

OK, I'll chime in again. In 2009 we flew down to Florida to pick up a 2005 Comp Pkg M3 we bought off eBay from a high profile BMW dealer. They originally sold the car, and it was CPO'd for us. The text stated it to be a "perfect example" car. The first thing I saw were three plugs in the rear end of the passenger's side doorwell, plus a bit of ripple in the body side behind the door. Clearly the side had been dinged and paintless body work performed. I pointed this out to the internet salesman: tsk, tsk. The car was beautiful: Interlagos Blue, fabric seats, manual gearbox, etc. We bought it anyway, and still have it in the family. Beautiful car. Back then, guess what: it had a clean CarFax.

 

Still have it? I still have my IB Comp Pkg M3 - partners with the 997.

 

Good news! I'm not sure if this would have been resolved as quickly or at all if the GM of the dealer didn't contact the regional manager for carfax. I received a phone call today from cafax. They said the accident was placed on my report by mistake. I asked how that happened. Inverted Vin perhaps? She said the licence plate matched but when she read the description of the car it did not match mine. Input error I guess. Within 20 minutes I was emailed a copy of the corrected report. I can now sell my car. Look for it soon in Rennlist classifieds! Thanks for all the input on this topic. I've learned carfax is a nearly worthless service filled with errors and omissions. Next purchase will include a body shop inspection in addition to the PPI.

 

Congrats to you and the dealer!

 

As this thread has shown, you can't count on CarFax being a true indicator of your car's history. Its a first start but not the end of. You need to always get a PPI on a car. To be honest altered bodywork I don't mind as much - i.e. if there is new paint on the bumper or such. What would always worry me is any structural or frame damage to the car. That is hidden but effects your car in a worst way.

So get a CarFax but if you're serious in buying, get a inspection done by a professional. If you're buying from a local mom&pop dealer, get it done by a 3rd party, I would not trust them with a inspection.

 

By mistake? Lol. How many other mistakes are out there? How many wrecked cars have clean Carfaxes because of mistakes? Unreal....

 

To answer wardrive, yes: in a way. The Comp Pkg '05 M3 is irreplaceable, to my mind. It is a REALLY nice car, even without the Bilstein PSS10 complete coil-over suspension recently installed. Did I mention a super comfortable back seat? However, when we got our GTS there was a garage space problem...yet I couldn't bring myself to sell the M3. So, nice Dad that I am, it's on extended loan to one of our sons. Now that I think about it, I'm going to update my signature element.

 

You are a nice dad.

 

And that is how untrustworthy Carfax is. They use 'license plate' data to match to your car record. About as bad as credit reports that carry massive previous address errors because some marketing company or other firm keyed in a nonsensical address with your name and now you have inaccurate crap on your record.

Clearly they need to validate the CAR (by vin and/or description) before they push out any data. If you are going to use weakly verifiable data elements (like a license plate) then you need to use a combination of many weakly verifiable data elements that must all agree - to give the data entry a bit more reliability.