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CARFAX Vehicle
History Reports, VIN Numbers Explained
-
CARFAX Vehicle History Reports how
to save thousands in losses when you buy a used car
- How to use your
CARFAX Vehicle History Report
to negotiate a lower used car price
- How your
CARFAX Report
can show if a used car has been stolen, VIN ID#'s falsified,
flooded, totaled in a bad car wreck, returned as a lemon or recalled
- All about VIN#'s,
VIN Search, VIN Number Decoders & common myths about VIN decoders
If you buy a used car, you absolutely must
get a
CARFAX Vehicle History Report
on the VIN number AND have a mechanic inspect the car on a lift. If you
do not do both of these, then do not buy that used car. You have been
warned. The VIN decoder keeps sellers honest too.
Also
read our guide
How To Buy a Used Car And Avoid Scams. It's the best used car
buying advice, with our used car bill of sale form, reviews of online
used car classifieds, how to buy a used car from dealers or private
sellers, negotiating with tough sellers, scams to avoid and a list of
questions for you to print out to ask the seller.
Always run a
CARFAX
Report on the
VIN# before you buy & avoid scams. Is the odometer rolled back? Find out
now, not later.
Do a VIN Search
Before you buy, any car is a Potential Lemon
There's over 2 million
wrecks a year, even certified used cars can have a bad past, whether
it's a Mercedes, Lexus, Honda, or Toyota. Without a
CAR FAX
used car history report, your chances of buying a wreck are high. It
happens every day to people who email me, learn from their mistakes,
don't let it happen to you.
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| Thousands of
cars were damaged when terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center.
These cars were salvaged, rebuilt, sold at car auctions and have their
titles rebuilt. One way to catch these cars is by running a
CARFAX 30 Day Unlimited Vehicle History Reports option
on every used car VIN number before you buy. The
CARFAX unlimited Vehicle History Reports Package
includes the free Safety And Reliability Report, giving you tons of
useful information on your car such as crash tests, VIN decoder, safety
recalls, reliability ratings all in one report from JD Power, NHTSA,
IIHS and Polk. All states are vulnerable to the scams that arise out of
mass vehicle ruins.
There's no
VIN Decoder for
used cars made before 1981
Not even
CARFAX
can get you a car history report for cars before 1981, because the VIN
did not become a standard until then, and every car manufacturer had
their own format, so you're out of luck.
There is no VIN decoder for this. But for late models years, the VIN
decoder section of a
CARFAX
report can
help you tell if the seller is lying about the model, for example,
calling it an EX, when the VIN decoder shows it to be an LX. |
Other
recent major vehicle disasters that might show up in a car title
history:
- 4 Hurricanes,
Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne battered the Southeast in 2004
- Tropical Storm Allison Flooded
20,000 Houston homes and cars in 2001
- In 1999 Hurricane Floyd flooded
or totaled 15,000 cars in the Carolinas
- In 1999 Hurricane Irene flooded
hundreds of cars in South Florida
What a CARFAX Used Car
History Report gives you
CARFAX Vehicle History Reports
search
over 2.7 billion records from 5,300 sources, state DMV’s,
auto auctions, manufacturers,
car dealers and repair shops.
A
CARFAX Vehicle History Report
on a used car VIN Number is your tool in preventing you from
getting ripped off on a used car. A car history report
reveals more about that used car than the seller is willing
to tell you. What a
CARFAX Vehicle History Report
tells you:
- Number of previous
owners, when it was sold, what states it was sold
in. Awesome!
- Police accident
reports if available for your VIN Number
- Major accident data,
including total loss, rebuilt wrecks, salvage titles &
airbag deployment
- Odometer rollback
check, truth in mileage consistency check
- VIN Number Decoder
shows year, model, engine, place of manufacture,
standard equipment
- Lemon check on VIN
number tells you if the car has been turned in under
lemon law
- If the car was
flooded, totaled by insurance, has a salvage title or
sold at an auction
- Open recalls on your
car, remaining coverage on the vehicle's warranty
- Service records from
GE fleet, more
- Indication if vehicle
has been certified pre-owned, leased, car rental, fleet
or government vehicle
- Date when dealer took
delivery. Use this to haggle a lower price, it's sitting
on the lot for months.
Dealers sometimes show you
a
CARFAX Vehicle History Report from
before they bought or traded the vehicle. Always run the
CARFAX Vehicle History Report
during negotiations to see
when the dealer bough that car. The VIN Decoder feature
verifies your car is what the dealer claims it is. |
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Some car accidents won't
appear in CARFAX history reports
Some municipalities don't supply accident report
data, and some accidents below $1000 are not reported. Nothing is fool proof.
That's why I stress so much that you still need a mechanic look at the car on a
lift to find accident damage not reported by the car history report. Vehicle
history reports are only as accurate as the data from their sources.
Get Yourself An Extended
Warranty For That used Car
The best advice on
this page is to get an extended warranty whenever you buy a used car. We'll
review car warranty companies like
1SourceAutoWarranty and
Warranty Direct. Be sure to read our chapter on
Extended Warranty Scams & Tips. It's a must.
Odometer Rollback
Myths
Many
people wrongly think digital odometers cannot be rolled back. With digital
odometers, the current mileage reading is stored in a flash chip or an EEPROM.
Anyone can remove the chip and reprogram it with lower mileage, so you must
perform a
CARFAX Vehicle History Report on the VIN Number. When a car
is inspected the mileage is recorded, and when the title changes hands or it is
traded in at car dealers, or turned in after a lease. As you look down a
CARFAX Vehicle History Report the recorded mileage increases
each year. If a
CARFAX mileage event shows less mileage than the last event,
you know you got odometer fraud. We know a man who found a Lexus with a rolled
back odometer when he ran the
CARFAX Vehicle History Report. If a seller lies about the
odometer, he may lie about the engine too, so the VIN decoder in the report will
weed that out.
CARFAX
also alerts you to potential airbag fraud
In some states,
CARFAX can tell you if the airbag was deployed in an
accident, if police investigators check it off in the accident report. Airbag
fraud is a huge and profitable scam. When cars are wrecked, insurance companies
pay for damages including airbag replacement. But unscrupulous repair shops
keep the money without replacing the $800 airbag, stuffing the space with
everything from crushed beer cans to peanut bags. Many companies sell fake
airbag covers so that you falsely think you have an airbag. Could you be driving
around in a used car with no airbag, even though you think there is one there?
You can't see through the airbag cover. That's why you need to know if the car
was wrecked. If the car had previous accidents on its
CARFAX car history report, you should be suspicious and have
a mechanic verify that airbags are properly installed.
Run A CARFAX Vehicle History Report Before
You Buy That Used Car
Think of a
CARFAX Vehicle History Report as a
credit report for a car. You MUST run this report if you buy a used car so you
don't get scammed. It happens to the best of cars too, Lexus and Mercedes.
- Extended Warranty
companies will not cover a salvaged car with a rebuilt title
- Manufacturer's
warranty is voided on a rebuilt or salvaged title
- Banks will not finance
a salvaged car with a rebuilt title
You would hate to buy a used car without a
CARFAX report, spend
hundreds on your extended warranty, then when you need to file a claim, the
warranty company finds out your used car was salvaged and voids the warranty.
VIN Numbers and where to
find them
Many visitors tell me they ran a
CARFAX
vehicle history report and found the used car they almost
bought was a rebuilt wreck. One visitor told me his
CARFAX history report saved him $7500.
You can find the VIN# on the a plate on the dashboard by looking through the
windshield. Some cars also have the 17 digit VIN# printed on stickers on the
drivers side door, trunk, other doors. Then you can run a
CARFAX Vehicle
History Report to see if it has a
rebuilt title. My friend showed me a
CARFAX report on a used Lexus RX300
that had been wrecked, another one showed me a
CARFAX report on a Honda Odyssey
minivan showing it was sold at a salvage auction.
So much confusion about
the
CARFAX
name!
Many people refer to
CARFAX incorrectly as
Car fax,
Carfacts, Carfacts.com
or Car
Facts. Some call it
CARFAXonline.com, or
autofax.com,
autofacts.com,
car fact.com,
car fact
. com. I get email from people getting the name mixed up, but they all
really mean
CARFAX.
You need to do
more than run Free CARFAX Record Checks!
Don't just
run free
CARFAX record checks and think your job is done. That's just
a teaser showing you how many records exist for that car, so run the full
CARFAX 30 Day Unlimited Vehicle History Reports option.
One in 10 cars in the
CARFAX database has a costly hidden problem.
CARFAX also has an excellent buyback guarantee. If for some
reason a problem title is later found on a vehicle that shows a "Clean Title" in
their system,
CARFAX will buy back the vehicle from you. The
CARFAX 30 Day Unlimited Vehicle History Reports option gives
you the chance to check the history of every used car you are shopping for.
Maximize your CARFAX
history reports. Get the
30 day unlimited car title
check
For
maximum benefit, do what I did. Sign up now before you forget, to the
CARFAX 30 Day Unlimited Vehicle History Reports option
instead of just a single vehicle history report, as you'll want to check
several cars before you buy. It gives you the chance to check the vehicle
history of every used car you are shopping for. You don't have a VIN number to
check yet? Yes you do, run the VIN number on your own car first. It's
instantaneous, then run your parents' car VIN Number to get a feel for reading
the reports. Get the VIN Numbers off every car you look at and it's an all you
can eat 30 day
CARFAX Vehicle History Report
buffet.
You'll look at 10 used cars before you buy, and car ads on Autotrader, so run
the VINs that are posted.
Use your vehicle history report to haggle
a lower used car price
- One nice feature of the
CARFAX Report that several of our visitors have made
clever use of is the leasing and delivery history of the car. Some people
get the car history report to determine when the dealer took delivery of the
used car coming off a lease. You'll might find the car was sitting on the
lot 6 months. You can use this powerful ammunition to knock down the price
of the car. If it's been on their lot for 6 months, no one wants it, name
your price. Many of our visitors have reported excellent success with this
strategy.
- Most people love that the
CARFAX report shows the states a car was registered in,
and when it was bought. This is useful data, because a 2003 car could have
been bought in 2002, so it's really older than the other 2003 models you are
looking at.
- My friend's
CARFAX report for the used Lexus RX300 he just bought has
a VIN decode showing the car was an 4 wheel drive. The dealer did not know
it because you cannot tell from the outside, and they only charged him for
the standard 2WD, so he made out quite well.
- If the car went through an auction, the
CARFAX vehicle history report will show it. This is a
great way for you to catch insurance companies who skirt the law. They
resell a totaled car through a salvage auction, evading your state's minimum
threshold of damage disclosure laws on the title. They are only required to
brand the title if the damage exceeds a percentage of the value of the car.
If they can get enough for the car at an auction, they won't have to brand
the title even though the car should be totaled. Then you lose out. In many
states the
CARFAX Report lists the police case number for car
accidents it was in, and a description of the accident. That's a great way
to trap a seller in lying about previous wrecks. Here's a great example:
My friend wanted to buy a used Lexus RX300
listed on Auto Trader's web site. He ran a
CARFAX Used Car History Report on the listed VIN# and found
the car was in a wreck. I scanned in a section of his report to show you a
trend you might see on accident cars:
First they wreck the car, then it gets
sold at an auction. The seller sure didn't advertise that in the ad!
Where can you get a VIN decoder?
Many
people ask where they can get a VIN decoder. The VIN decoder is very expensive,
and some car fan pages have a VIN decoder for a VIN only on one particular car.
But one good benefit of the
CARFAX Vehicle History Reports is their vin search includes
a VIN decoder on the car including the model, options, year, engine size and
type, drive train info, country of manufacture, EPA gas mileage, etc. This
gives you the car title facts that you'll need, and that car's past history
prior to making that car title transfer.
In California, you better
run the CARFAX
Gross Polluter Check!
CARFAX Gross
Polluter Check is a great tool for your
arsenal. This is a must if you live on the west coast. It informs you if the a
car has failed emissions in California. CA has probably the toughest emissions
laws in the US. If a car has failed emissions, it could cost you, the poor
unsuspecting consumer, hundreds of dollars or more to get the car to pass the
pollution test. That's a money trap you can do without.
Every VIN# Tells A Story
The 17 digit car VIN# (Vehicle
Identification Number) is on all cars, usually found in the dashboard as a metal
strip with numbers that you can't get at. In the 70's and 80's car thieves
would either alter the numbers, file them down, remove the tag altogether, or
replace it with a VIN tag from another stolen car. You should also be able to
find the VIN# inside the driver side door on a factory sticker, sometimes the
passenger door, your trunk may have a sticker, the hood usually has one, and
sometimes the engine and other major parts have one, or it's engraved. My Lexus
SC300 has stickers on most of the major panels. My 1988 Trans AM GTA also had a
sticker inside the center console with other part markings on major vehicle
parts to aid in theft recovery. The car makers usually place VIN stickers on
the major accident parts like doors, engines, and quarter panels. These are the
parts that are also broken down from a car when it's stolen. If they show up in
another car, you know something is wrong. Either the car was stolen, a victim
of grand theft auto, or previously junked and rebuilt. Walk around the car,
checking all the doors and panels for the VIN#, and making sure that ALL of them
match. If you find multiple VINs, run a
CARFAX VIN history on all of them.
Check all the doors and panels for the VIN#,
making sure that ALL of them match. If even one of them is a mismatch,
something is wrong. If the seller denied that the car was in a wreck, it's time
to leave, for you know they are lying now. Ask them why the VIN#'s don't match
and watch them squirm. This is the best way to protect yourself and it takes you
a minute.
The
DMV processes and approves 350 "rebuilt" or "laundered" titles every month.
On 7/18/99 The Miami Herald published a report called "Rebuilt Wrecks:
Buying Trouble" by Larry Lebowitz. Detailing scams that several used car
buyers ran into, most of which have been listed here for years. If these poor people had only stopped by here before they went to buy,
they would have been much better off. The article reported that the DMV
processes and approves 350 "rebuilt" or "laundered" titles every month. That
means chances are good that you can get a car that was wrecked or stolen, and
had the title "branded" as totaled, but it was laundered back to "used car"
status by making a few minor repairs in a highly unsupervised and loosely
regulated industry. Can you guarantee your safety in a wreck? How do you know
if the airbag still works, or the ABS? There is no safety data on rebuilt cars,
and you should not risk the lives of your kids on a rebuilt car.
Evidence of a previous accident or rebuilt
cars
Check the tires and windows carefully for
evidence of paint over spray. Many sellers will put a cheap paint job on the
car and lie about it being in a wreck. The cheaper the paint job, the sloppier
the body shop gets. They get over spray all over the place, and that's your
singing telegram that the car was in a wreck or rebuilt, most people don't just
paint a car for the heck of it. Run the title search on the car and it will
tell you if the title has been branded in any way.
The free car history check is a way to get
started, but it only tells you if the car was returned as a lemon. So be sure
you do more than just run the free
CARFAX car title history. This free car title search is not
the complete
CARFAX Vehicle History Report.
When we checked the
CARFAX database a few years ago, Florida had over 700,000
problem vehicles, California had 548,000, New York had 709,000, and Texas had
1.7 million! Dateline NBC did a report using
CARFAX on Hurricane Andrew cars in Florida with junked titles
being laundered back to "used car" status in other states. Credit unions and
dealers use
CARFAX vehicle history reports religiously, so should you and
I. Enter the VIN#, the report appears online, with title and registration data,
certified odometer readings, liens & more.
| How To
Tell If A Car Has Been Flooded
 We
get tropical storms and Hurricanes in the southeast that flood thousands
of cars annually. Where do these cars end up? In your driveway as a
used car. This is the biggest complaint of buying used cars. In
6/2001, tropical storm Allison flooded thousands of cars in Houston. On
10/15/99 Hurricane Irene flooded hundreds of cars in South Florida, and
in 9/99, Hurricane Floyd flooded an unbelievable 15,000 cars in the
Carolinas. Many were totaled and have their titles branded by insurance
companies as "Flooded". Here's some tell tale signs to check for flood
damage.
- Look for water lines on the
engine. Imagine a car sitting in a few feet of water, where would
the water lines be? On the radiator, the engine, the wheel wells,
inside the car, but they may have cleaned the engine. Examine it on
a lift.
- A VIN decoder should tell you if
equipment is missing on the car.
- New carpeting or upholstery. No
one re-carpets their car for no reason. Lift the carpet and look
for a mess underneath. They don't always do a good job cleaning.
Look for mold, or a damp musty smell. Check for rust by the door
hinges, and look in the trunk under the mats. Check the spare tire
and crow bar, make sure they are not rusted.
- Use a mirror to check under the
seat. If the metal has been contact with moisture, the metal rusts
quickly.
- Check the air intake filter. Some
people are such losers that they don't even bother to replace the
soaked air filter, so you'll see debris like grass, twigs, and
papers on the filter or inside the air intake opening.
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