Hi everyone! Such question: have I right to require a dealership to provide me with a used car report? The one I’m going to buy, of course. If not, how can i check myself, if this car was ever damaged or not?
Sure, they can give you Carfax. But it may not show much. The best is if they allow you take the car for a couple of hours so you can take it to an independent mechanic.
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Carfax is mostly a joke now.
They started as a really transparent and progressive company - now they just suck.
I think they got too big, too fast. It’s almost a commonality for the reports to be wrong yet taken as gospel.
+1 for @Ursus - take it to an independent mechanic who will put it on a rack and shake it down for any problems.
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Take it to the highway and floor it until you hit 100 mph. If it does not shake, rattle, shimmy, stumble or hesitate then it is good.
Ps Warning - do this at your own risk.
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As everyone else has said, don’t take carfax or auto check as gospel. Just recently, I traded in a Nissan Rogue. While sitting on the dealer lot, I checked out the carfax report out of curiosity. A $2500.00 hit-and-run accident my wife was involved in didn’t show, and it reported as accident free. Likewise, I have seen known discrepancies between auto check and carfax on the same vehicle I have previously owned.
Best bet is to take it to an independent mechanic and have them check it out thoroughly. If the dealer doesn’t permit this or prefers you use their service department/mechanic, walk. You’ll pay a mechanic a couple bucks to do this check, but it’s sure better than spending a few thousand bucks on a headache.
Same here. Carfax only reports damage if there was police report, I believe. And sometimes it takes up to 6 month (or never) to show up there.
It depends - some collision shops report out to Carfax.
It’s more if the business has a carfax accout or reports anything to a state/govt/licensing agency.
I had my car repaired at a large shop that was also my insurance’s “preferred” one. They probably don’t get anything back from carfax, so why bother?
The carfax pipeline is convoluted to say the least.
I’ve had numerous vehicles with incorrect info and they refuse to change them.
It’s seriously a six month process from start to ‘we’ll consider it’.
@ six months, we’d have wholesaled it.
In some states like CA they must do it under the law regulations. If not, you can do it yourself not to be scammed. There is a variety of that kind services, don’t be lazy to use google search (I’ll skip Carfax). Such sites as a rule provide topic related articles in addition to VIN number check: www.trustvin.com/auto-history-by-checking-the-vin-number, www.vehiclehistory.com/vehicle/land.php, www.vincheckpro.com
We filed a report and it was more than a year ago. So they are definitely all over the map with regard to reporting.
For Porsche, it’s called a PPI (Pre-Purchase Inspection). Most independents would have a flat fee for this for around $150-180 if you take the car to them. They will produce a report for you.
lmfao i completely agree with this.