Used Car Buying - CarFax

[CXS]

After trying to live with just my 4Runner we decided to buy a car for my wife. No way we'd buy new so we searched the used market. So many scammers, idiots & junk out there we ended buying from a small lot which is usually what we avoid. I'm not a believer in the reliability or completeness of CarFax but we got lucky.

My wife's favorite car was an old '98 Accord she gave to our son when she realized how little she used it. When we saw a very nice looking '99 Acura we decided to look at it. Hmm, 98k miles - must need a t-belt. Nope, it was done. We checked CarFax and found 57 items, yikes, must be some bad stuff! Turns out this car was a corporate vehicle and was serviced by a Honda dealer in my neighborhood. Checking further we found it was driven by a guy who gave it up at 84 years old who was fanatical about maintaining it. It looks and drives like new despite being 17 years old.

I guess sometimes you get lucky.

 

[AKmoney]

Lots of people say Carfax isn't worth it but it worked in my case.

When I was originally shopping for a 4Runner I saw one for sale (private party) that caught my eye. It was a 2004 and had ~110K miles on it. Pics looked clean. The seller said he just bought it a couple weeks ago but ran into some random financial crisis and had to immediately resell it - he never even titled it in his name (yuge red flag). I got the VIN and ran the Carfax report - the truck had over 200K documented miles on it. It was clearly an odometer rollback scam. Next...

The 4Runner I eventually bought was a single owner truck and had *many* Carfax maintenance entries. They were all from a local Toyota dealer. The previous owner was religious about sticking to factory maintenance. He had a folder of dealer receipts to match every Carfax entry. My favorite one was the timing belt change - he did it at 90,009 miles. I jokingly said he should knock the price off because he was late on that service and it showed ownership neglect.

 

[Ellis_McPickle]

Carfax has it's place for sure. As a matter of habit, I run/request one on any vehicle I'm considering and it can rule in or rule out a vehicle. I don't take them as gospel or anything, but as the OP and AKmoney both mentioned above, it can be a really useful tool.

 

[CXS]

Carfax has it's place for sure. As a matter of habit, I run/request one on any vehicle I'm considering and it can rule in or rule out a vehicle. I don't take them as gospel or anything, but as the OP and AKmoney both mentioned above, it can be a really useful tool.

Yeah, that was supposed to be my point. I've never been a supporter of using Carfax as gospel but my experience shows that it can be a useful tool - nothing more, nothing less.

 

[CXS]

[MENTION=84801]AKmoney[/MENTION] - "ownership neglect" I like it!

:cheers:

 

[Okie81]

John Oliver summed it up a few weeks back:
Auto Lending: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Helpful hint: If you're looking to buy a car and it has one of those "oil change" stickers on the window, call the company. I called Jiffy-Lube for my 4Runner before I bought it, they gave me a detailed report of the service that had been performed over the last 10 years! Almost like a CarFax, but free.

 

[amalik]

@CXS,

Nice post.

I went balls deep on CL when it was time to find the wifey a car.

Found also an 85 year old retired lawyer in Aurora (the rich part) with a 07 civic that he babied at the dealer. No Carfax, but a shit ton of maintenance for only 25k.

I didn't have to ask much about TB WP or etc because I bought it off him at 25k miles.

 

[smerhej]

If you're ever in need of another carfax, there's this angel over on Reddit in /carfax who will do them for $7 USD (I just did one on another 4Runner last week).

Definitely a lucky find though!

 

[amalik]

If you're ever in need of another carfax, there's this angel over on Reddit in /carfax who will do them for $7 USD (I just did one on another 4Runner last week).

Definitely a lucky find though!

People run them for free here on T4R.