I checked on a car that I was selling. The Carfax teaser claimed that it had "5 important vehicle records". It turned out that the "important" records were when I registered it (as the 2nd owner), and various smog checks. I complained to Carfax that smog checks were to be expected, and not "important records"> I asked for a refund under their "money back if not satisfied", and they refunded my money.

I think it is worth doing if you're buying a car, especially on the east coast. (It just seems like odometer rollback is more common there than on the west coast.)

Hello,

I checked my own car out on one of these database services. It used to be a Georgia car, so the mileage was logged each time the car was smogged. Well, I was told of possible odometer tampering because the odometer readings were not in ascending order. Looking at it for a while revealed that at one smog check the mileage must have been written down incorrectly, that is what caused the discrepancy.

bye,

Csaba

I, too used Carfax when I was looking for my '87 244. When I ended up buying one, I knew the fellow, and he was the original owner. Before i looked at it, he told me the mileage (over 250K), but when I looked at it, I was puzzled to see only 159K. Turns out it had a broken odometer at 246K (w/repair bills to back it up). Those trusty instrumnent clusters are easy to swap, especially for dishonest purposes. (saw a '90 the other day with 12K...) Carfax reported the correct changes in titles and such for that car. So that was good.

However, I checked my car I was going to sell. It was a 3-owner car, the last two being my father and myself. For this one, it only showed the transfer between the dealer and the first owner, and my father and myself. So, Carfax can be a little sketchy. Also, on both cars, there should have been more records-- the '87 was in a smog-checking state for at least its first 8-9 years, and it only reported a few non-concurrent checks.

There. That's my two pennies.

I should tell you my story with buying my brick.

I did one of those free checks on Carfax.com and it said there were five records but that there were no "problem records" found. I figured this meant that the odometer had not been rolled back, but that the car had changed hands a few times. I knew that it had not been totaled (PA titles show this -- I bought the car in PA). So it looked OK, right? WRONG.

I later had much trouble with the car and began to suspect that the car was older than I thought. So I paid the $15 to run a full check on the VIN in Carfax. I found that instead of having 119k miles on it, it had DOUBLE that. This did not show up until I had paid the money for the full title/VIN check.

MORAL: If you are really interested in buying the car and you have any reason at all to suspect that there may be some funny business going on (and 11 records is a lot), pay the money and get the full story. Had I done this would not have bought that particular car (bought I would still definitely have bought a 240!).

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I just used it on an 88 300zx ibought, a guy on the Z site had a free access place to click on, i went to it and got the data and was able to print it out for free. Very useful, showed its hitory from 1st registration to the last one. Kind of neat..... Tom Wasney 240aholic

I would certainly cast my vote with all the others, but remember that carfax is only as good as its data. States vary on what they report on a title, plus you've heard how sloppy some states can be that have laws against salvaged cars. In other words, don't forget to conduct that really close inspection! Carfax is just one more (great) tool for your protection.

The $20 is worth it in my opinion. I used it to select the last Volvo I purchased and also ran it on the other cars I own. Some postings in response have mentioned data the report holds. It also tells you of PASS/FAIL emissions tests, if that makes a difference to you. My understanding is that not all accidents will appear in the report. I'm told it depends on whether the value of damages exceeds a certain threshold, and that may be an individual state criteria. I also used the report as a sales gimmick when I recently sold two cars. I showed prospective buyers the CARFAX report and urged them to look it up themselves. In my area (eastern NC), flood cars may be a problem. For the above mentioned Volvo, I purchased it from a pre-owned Volvo dealer that was very up front about CARFAX and its advantages to dealer and buyer. That certainly created an aura of trust surrounding our negotiations. When you're spending significant money, $20 is negligible. Good Luck!

Michael ('90 760GLT, '83 245GLT, '83 240DL, '92 240DL)

If you're looking for a used car, invest the $20 in Carfax - it's worth it.

I was looking for an '85-'90 Volvo recently for my daughter, and I was astonished at the number of cars I looked at that were totaled and salvaged

in another state, then brought into my state. I even looked at the titles

of two of them that did not show as rebuilt, yet Carfax showed that they were. The DOL at the state capital told me a rebuilt car can't enter this state (WA) with a clean title. WRONG, obviously. I finally found a good one, with a tracable local history, but it was amazing what I found along the way. Out of the 25 or so I ran through Carfax, at least 6 or 7showed salvage reports or evidence or odometer rollback. What's amusing is to confront some of the used car dealers with this, and watch their reaction.

If they have something to hide, they hate it. Carfax was even featured on our local news recently, with a camera crew going out and doing just that.

In this state, it won't show miles on emissions tests over 100K, because the state exempts those cars. but it definitely shows lien and title changes.

Carfax records not only title changes but lien actions as well, so every time the car is financed and oaid off the record will reflect that.

I've done a complete carfax report on my '87 240 before, and it says that my car was titled with 46 miles on it, then it changed hands at 124,524 (to a used car dealer), and then I bought it. That's only three changes, and one previous owner, but when I just went to do the quick check at carfax.com, it says that there are 5 important records on my car. I don't know what they mean by 5 records, but it doesn't seem to represent how many times the car has been sold.

it was titled as Totalled, Water Damage, pieced together...etc. My car was bought in Virginia and sold twice thru the dealer in Berwyn.

I tried CarFax when it was free and it shows you when a title was changed. It does work. I would check on those 11 records....