How to Use CARFAX to Check VIN Numbers I recently had the experience of searching for a car with my daughter when her 1996 Lumina bit the dust, literally. She had brought the car in a pinch last year when she needed one fast and it has served her well. But now, a 13 year old car with way over one hundred thousand miles on it, it had given all it had to give. We started looking for a new car and we learned several things: One, is to do your homework. Always. We researched the cars on the Internet thoroughly, we checked the ratings of each vehicle we were interested in.
http://checkvinnumber.net/ We felt reasonably equipped to go out to face the dealers, and were tremendously surprised to find out we weren't. We had picked out the cars we wanted, but they (the dealers) had a different agenda. We learned some things though. One of the things we learned about was CARFAX. Car Max gave us a free copy for each car we looked at. But researching online we had found some things about CARFAX. A gentleman in another state had apparently accidentally purchased a stolen car even though he requested a CARFAX report on the car, CARFAX reported the title clean, when actually the car had been stolen. The Title of the car was branded restored and it reduced the value of the car 3 to 5000 dollars. Another gentlemen ran a routine CARFAX on his car and an accident he knew he had reported was not listed on The CARFAX report. There were more instances, I am only reporting on two, but does this mean that you should not use a CARFAX report? That they are unreliable? No, it does not. I recommend using CARFAX VIN check, and this is the reason why.
There are many reasons why an accident may not be listed on a CARFAX report. Suppose the person who has the accident cannot afford a regular mechanic and has the car repaired by his best friend Joe down the road? Joe is not required to report the repair he did in his garage so the information is not reported to the DMV or the insurance companies that CARFAX gets their information from. A stolen car is reported to the police, but the police fail to report it to the DMV, only police department from certain states report to CARFAX. So it is true sometimes information is missing from your CARFAX report. But when you are ready to purchase a car one of the ways to get further information is from CARFAX. Check VIN number can and will give you as complete a history as it has at its disposal. Knowing the basic history of the car will help in your decision, but it doesn't take place of a physical inspection. This is always important in choosing a used vehicle. Are you concerned the car may be stolen? If you are for whatever reason, just take the VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) which can be found in several places on the car. The most convenient is the inside of the windshield on the driver’s side, but it is also on the inside door panel, on the engine and on the registration or paperwork of the car. If you are concerned about the year or the upkeep of the car? This to can be found on the inside of the driver’s side door panel. This date is the year of manufacture not the model year which will be one year later. i.e. a car made in 2005 will be sold as a 2006. Dealers have their own agenda as I explained on a post on my blog 10 tips on buying a car As far as CARFAX is concerned, for 40 dollars you can get unlimited reports on as many cars as you like. This is an inexpensive deal when you are shopping for a car. A car is a major purchase, and as in most major purchases a little advance research, and money spent before the purchase will make for better sleeping after the purchase. Now the Car Dealers Agenda, here is a book that will help you, it helped us to know what was going on. It gave us the language we needed to get the car we wanted at the price we wanted.