Are Carfax Reports Reliable?

Are Carfax Reports Reliable?

Getting a vehicle history report — whether it’s from Carfax or a competitor like Autocheck — has become a routine part of buying a used car. But are Carfax reports reliable? It’s an important question because people put a lot of trust into vehicle history reports, and if those documents are wrong, the results can be expensive.

Where Does Carfax Get Its Information?

Per the Carfax website, the company’s vehicle history reports draw from “more than 139,000 different sources including every U.S. and Canadian provincial motor vehicle agency plus many police and fire departments, collision repair facilities, auto auctions, and more.”

It’s a fairly comprehensive list at first glance, yet it’s easy to see where some cars can fall through the cracks. For example, if a vehicle was in an accident that wasn’t reported to any of Carfax’s sources, it obviously couldn’t appear on a Carfax report. And not all mechanics provide information to Carfax, so a vehicle can be damaged and repaired without the incident appearing on a used-car history report. 

Carfax admits right on its site that “A Carfax Report may not include every event in a vehicle’s history,” and while there is a Carfax buy-back guarantee, the coverage is exceedingly strict.

Other Reasons to be Careful about a Carfax Report

It’s also worth remembering that much of the information on a vehicle history report is tied to a car’s VIN, which is a string of 17 alphanumeric characters. A mistake in just one can mean the wrong info is connected to the wrong used car. 

Another worry is that because people put so much trust into vehicle history reports, some shady characters are out there trying to scam people with them. One way is to present a customer with an apparently clean Carfax Report that’s actually out of date and doesn’t reflect recent damage. Sometimes this can be a case where the accident reporting hasn’t caught up with a vehicle’s Carfax Report and a third-party seller isn’t aware of the situation. More often, the seller knows the report is incorrect but uses it to persuade the buyer to close a deal anyway.

Should I Get a Carfax Report Before Buying a Car?

The bottom line is that a vehicle history report is an excellent resource for shoppers, but it’s merely one thing to take into account. Not even Carfax recommends purchasing a car based solely on one of its reports. It says everyone should test drive a vehicle and have it inspected by a qualified mechanic before you close the deal — and the team at HMSMC agrees!  

Now that you know more about vehicle history reports, you can start shopping here, start selling here, and enjoy the whole HMSMC site from wherever you have an Internet connection.