Asked my buddy what he thinks, and he doesn't know either.

We have 4 cars, 3/4 cars were purchased new, only the LS430 was used.

As mentioned, 3/4 cars did not have much as far as Carfax goes, despite being serviced for years at authorized dealerships while under warranty. The unlikely candidate with a complete service history, is the 1998 Maxima, being virtually complete all the way back to 2001.

I had the carfax app on my old Samsung phone, which I booted up on Sat. When I opened the app, now suddenly all cars have fairly complete service histories. How/why would that happen?

So I've been saying for a long time I wouldn't trust carfax based on nearly all service being missing from our cars, now that has done a 180? Odd?

 

Agreed that is strange as hell, but who knows with Carfax? I'm considering a car right now that has had several services performed relatively recently (as displayed on the Lexus site) since the last shown on the Carfax. Also, Autocheck shows one owner, but Carfax lists two.

One would think that Carfax info automatically updates via data downloads. Maybe so and they are dependent on those who submit data. Or maybe it's the other way and they have to upload.

The lesson, as always, is that those sources are not close to 100% reliable.

 

I was thinking why would BMW and GM dealerships, not report to carfax, as they are dealerships. Info has always been absent, and as of this weekend, it seems to be all there, going back 11 and 6 years respectively.

The reason I asked my buddy is he uses carfax quite a lot. Prior to this info now populating, what always seemed to be on the report are PA emissions testing, even from muffler shops, the three stooges, and dealerships. Along these lines, I wondered why a dealership shows up with emissions testing, but then not an airbag replacement, or a brake flush, etc. Now suddenly even GM shows as interior trim inspected, etc., little things, all the way back to 2011. I'm curious as to what triggered it, and really, how much can it be trusted. If I ran the report today, I would say it can be trusted.

 

Carfax just reached some sort of deal with whoever controls where your cars are serviced, and now they have access to that data.