I just want to know how reliable you guys have found Carfax to be. I am not too sure about it. First off, when my mother traded her Passat in they brought up the carfax and it said that the airbags had gone off. It was in a mild front collision but the 'bags never deployed. Then on my 4Runner, it has all the maintanince records from the previous owner, but says the timing belt was inspected at about 100k miles. I found a site on this forum where you can look up your VIN and find out the history. It came up with all of the same records but said the belt and water pump were replaced. I am not sure which to believe and do not want to have to pay to do the job that may have just been done. Also do not want to risk it having not been done. What have you found in the past?
Carfax Reliability
- Thread starter Ruthven13
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ChrisLovesUgly
New member
The only thing I can say is that checked and changed are not the same thing. Look for a sticker in the engine bay that gives a date and mileage regarding a timing belt change, it's usually on the air box.
ZebRuaj
New member
What ^^ said. It's a tool, but not everything. Use it along with everything else available to you to make your best judgement call. Receipts from the owner would be your best bet.
If you're good and tedious at vehicle inspection, you can notice that panel gaps don't line up, missing VIN tags on certain body panels, rusted and scarred bolts, paint lines, and yada yada yada.
My TSX had a run in with a deer. Insurance covered it. Shop never reported any repairs. Sold it with a clean title.
If you're good and tedious at vehicle inspection, you can notice that panel gaps don't line up, missing VIN tags on certain body panels, rusted and scarred bolts, paint lines, and yada yada yada.
My TSX had a run in with a deer. Insurance covered it. Shop never reported any repairs. Sold it with a clean title.
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As has been said, it's a tool and you shouldn't trust it to show everything. There are exceptions, we just bought a '99 Accura for my wife. All of 98,000 miles with 57 CarFax entries all done at a local Honda dealer by the original owner. That's equal to being at the dealer every 1,700 miles. Strange but true!
Victor_inox
New member
How many more Carfax questions needed to be posted in a month?
use search function for God`s sake.
use search function for God`s sake.
Probably 10% as many as the ones about VSC lights being on!
Wow. Didn't know it was that many. Nevermind that I haven't even seen another one and I check in here almost every day. Thanks to those that had a useful reply though. I will try more avenues to find out if it had been changed or not...
Victor_inox
New member
Click search on the top of the page type carfax and you`ll receive 20 pages of threads. literally 20 pages.
Victor_inox
New member
:lmao:
