Are CarFax Reports a Waste Of Time?

well of course it overheated, she bought a used Jag, what did she expect?

And before anyone flames me or I get -100 boost, it's a joke.

Shouldn't the car have had a "Salvage" title when he bought it? Maybe they said "it was a small bump at a red light".

"I've found CarFaxes to be accurate less than 60 percent of the time," said Tim Blake, a Miami attorney specializing in auto fraud.

No S!!T sherlock.

When anybody comes to you, its because they were hosed.

The real question is that how many of them are accurate that don't come into your office?

I find that CARFAX reports are 100% accurate about half of the time.

Yes- they are a waste of time.

Carfax reports are fantasy. Just after my GTI was nearly totaled and repaired and as I was getting ready to trade on my 330i, I ran a Carfax report.

It came up clean.

I knew then I would never trust that company's reports.

I also had an accident and ran a car fax report and it was clean a few weeks after the repair. I was going to trade it in at a dealership and all of a sudden it popped up on the report 3 mos. later

My beater's CarFax report came up clean but showed a spotty service history.

The previous owner luckily maintained meticulous records and you could see where some facilities reported to CarFax only for some of the visits. CarFax relies on the facilities to report to them, when only some of them actually do.

I find them useful. I buy cars that are about 5 years old, and usually from dealers (or trade-in wholesalers). My main concern is how many owners (as an indication of maintenance). My wife's 2001 A6 had 1 previous owner, and 6 years of maintenance at Audi dealers. We have all the books, and even the business card of the salesman who sold the car originally.
But when I see similar cars with up to 6 owners, and the last 3 or 4 each owned the car less than a year, you have to wonder: "When someone owns a car for 6 - 8 months, do they bother with oil-changes and routine maintenance designed to extend the life of the car?"
I doubt it.

I prefer a one-owner, high-mileage car over one that's crawled through stop-and-go traffic for several owners.
My latest purchase, a 2000 A6 2.7 twin-turbo with 6-speed had 165,000 miles on it when I bought it. I totally replaced the front suspension and tie-rod ends (about $1000 with labor, parts are cheap for Audis), along with Eibach springss and Koni shocks. Its like a new car now, and the engine just sings!

I sell each car for $3000 to $5000 over what I put into it after a year, because I start with a solid vehicle.
Carfax works for what I need from it.

Many people buying used, buy it one to two years old to save on the depreciation hit. Just makes sense.

many investment advisors and consumer advocates repeatedly emphasize the importance of buying a used car to avoid that dreaded depreciation the first 2 years of use. The ideal used car is one that's about 3 years old because it still has its original warranty intact while the price is a more accurate reflection of the cars worth because the depreciation is gone. If you only drive 10,000 miles a year, you can almost drive a car for free if you buy a 4 year old Lexus GS that's out of warranty, drive it for a year, and sell it back again for the same price you bought it for. Also, never buy or sell from a dealer if this is what you plan to do, their mark-up is too high.

Cheap or smart? You be the judge. Considering that a car is not an investment but a tool that loses its value and must be sold (or given away) after a finite period of time, it's obvious that a car represents a person's ego more than anything else. Driving a nice car is an expensive hobby.

He said he's a doctor but in South Florida, you also have to ask "in what country...". :)

This is a 2001 mdoel, more than a couple years old.

IMHO it's a good way to weed out the obvious no-nos, despite not being perfect. I mean, any of you that's ever been in or known anyone that's been in an accident knows that you could just not report the accident and pay cash. With the carfax you can narrow down your list of potential used cars to buy, then still go and check the chassis of those cars.

In my opinion, if you're buying a high end vehicle -especially a mercedes, don't rely on carfax - You may want to research the vehicle service history.

Exactly, but if you're buying cars from anywhere in North America, the CarFax is a good first filter. I immediately reject > 90% of the cars based on Carfax. After that I look at whether they have all the manuals, keys, service records, and tires!
In fact, I may rate car TIRES as high as CarFax. If a car has high-end Pirelli, Yokohama, Bridgestone, Continental or Michelins on it, then there's a good chance its been well maintained.
But if it has cheap department store crap-tires on it, then you know what kind of owner it has and their reluctance to spend any $$$ on their car.

Ricemaster says "Honda shocks will easily go 200K miles". That may be true in the past. I had an 1990 Civic whose struts were replaced at 145K. But the new (2006)Civic's struts are a joke. Just got rid of the POS @ 9K miles after replacing the front left struts twice and the right rear was making noises when I traded it in on an '06 Mazda 6. Go to the Civic forums and read all the complaints.