Hi everyone - I'm looking into buying what appears to be a very well maintained GX470. According to the Autocheck and Carfax reports the car has been very well cared for and the previous owner followed all of the recommended maintenance schedule and it was performed at a Lexus dealership for over a decade. The problem is that 10 years ago there was some sort of police report / accident that occurred. I tried contacting the police dept. in TX for a copy of the police report, but they don't keep them in their computer system for that long. I also checked with my insurance company to see if they could find some details on any insurance claims, but they can't either. I then (I might be a little crazy) emailed the Lexus dealership where it was maintained to ask if they knew anything about the accident or did the repairs. No answer from them.

So, my question is does anyone have any tips for figuring out full details on a previous car accident for a used vehicle?

Thanks

 

10 years could be way too long for any detailed records to linger around.

Your best bet is to take it a dealer/ indie shop and pay for an inspection and have them comb through it.

Even if there's a record of an accident, you won't know what was repaired if you don't have the repair records from the body shop.

 

I once needed a copy of police report. was told to mail written request with a check to archive place.
Maybe archive personal work faster in other cities but in Los Angeles it took about 7 month to get a copy of the report.
But if car is in great shape 10 years after an accident I'd just do an inspection just like other person suggested.

 

Other then finding some way of contacting the previous owner if that is possible I would just take it in to get it inspected. I doubt if it happened 10 years ago it has causes any lingering problems or those problems were never addressed in 10 years. Most accidents are just minor fender benders and should not concern buyers too much.

 

I doubt there is anything seriously wrong with the vehicle. I would jump on it.

 

I'd have it inspected at an independent shop regardless. I was rear ended in a BMW i owned a few years ago. Repair shop ripped off the rear bumper cover and gave me a new one, nothing else was wrong but that is now stuck to the vehicle history because the rear ender's insurance paid out.

My buddy (who purchases for a dealer network at auction) has seen totally jacked up vehicles with clean carfaxes. Could go either way.

What does help your case with this vehicle is that it's been on the road for ten years since this accident. Either the owner just doesnt give a damn about some glaring damage, or it had been fixed (or was minor). A good inspection will tell you more.

 

One of the services like CarFax or AutoCheck offers a separate service that shows police reports of documented accidents. It's a separate charge (I think like $30 per incident) but seems like it would solve what you're looking for. I used it when buying a 3rd vehicle last summer to verify what the seller told me happened to the car. I paid for a subscription to CarFax or Autocheck (don't remember which) and as I looked up the car and saw the accident, it offered me the option to get the police report. I don't know how far back that service goes though.

As others have noted, if the accident happened 10 years ago, I personally would have no issues with it. Even someone driving 1/2 the amount of normal miles per year would have put about 60k-70k miles on the GX after the accident. One other thing you may want to look at is how long after the accident the car was sold (assuming it has had more than 1 owner). As someone who was recently rear-ended in my car, I have no plans of getting rid of it any time soon which I will use as a talking point whenever I do sell it. (ie. "The accident on the CarFax wasn't bad enough for me to feel uncomfortable with the car- I kept it for 3 or 4 years after the accident and drove it another 60k miles").

If you don't find a police report, it may be because the driver ran into something and when they file it through insurance it will show up on the CarFax. This happened to us when my wife backed our SUV into a pole (with a back-up cam and rear sensors!!) and we leveraged our insurance to get it repaired. There was no actual accident involving another vehicle, just an accident of backing into something. But I don't think CarFax differentiates that- they just report an "incident" where the car was repaired.

 

I agree on the above scenario, or it could be the driver had a small scuff, door ding, or minor hit and run that he reported to police but didn't follow up with processing the insurance claim and/or repaired it privately.
It will show "collision reported" on the records, but not have any details or estimates of the damage since it was never fixed.

 

I'm going to suggest that if the car has been running for 10 years after an accident, you are being overly concerned about the details.