how reliable is carfax ?

Run a carfax report on the car, it is 06 lexus car, with 24k plus mileage, the seller lease this car for his business, only been to dealer
for service in sept 06, with 6000 miles and it shows sept 09 with 23k when it renewed the lease with DMV. Any odometer roll back problem ?

Any advice will be appreciated.

 

The Carfax report that the dealership provided did not have as much history as the report I found on the Lexus.com website.

If you now own the vehicle, you can register, enter your VIN and see what their report shows:
https://secure.drivers.lexus.com/lex...-lexus/home.do

 

We just bought a an 06 4Runner V8 with nav last week with only 19K on the clock. We paid only $19K so we were scratching our heads at the good deal.

Carfax in our case was pretty good as far as nailing each of the service checks. Only thing that stuck out was a replaced ignition coil. I verified this by going to a Toyota dealer and running a similar check. However, the couple that owned the car really hardly drove it (early 70s). I also did my own independent check looking inside and outside of the vehicle, even hooking it up with my laptop, but nothing found.

 

I wouldn't rely solely on Carfax. Although it will cost a few extra bucks, it's worth running the VIN through a similar type of company such as AutoCheck.

The Lexus dealer might be willing to share some very general information, eg. whether or not the vehicle has had more frequent maintenance than what you're seeing on Carfax.

 

car fax is only as reliable as those who work on/report on. if people dont tell carfax, they dont know.

for example, back in the day i wrecked my integra, bent the frame, i had it repaired properly by a body guy who ran his own business. i did not go through insurance either. car fax will not pick that up.

 

Autocheck will provided more information. I looked at one vehicle recently that CarFax had no accidents reported whereas AutoCheck did report one accident.

 

Autocheck scores higher than Carfax

 

Last time I was car shopping I signed up for Carfax for a month so I could check out cars I came across. I happened to run a report on my car I was selling, and an accident came up on the report that had not happened. I bought that car new, and it had never been in an accident, yet the Carfax report claimed it had been in an accident outside of Baltimore during my ownership. Carfax didn't have a "Carfax Guarantee" on the report, and I ignored it. Apparently so did the buyer, because they never asked about it.

But, I learned first had that those reports are not necessarily 100% accurate.

 

I had a new '07 Camry XLE and hit a deer on the NJ Garden State Parkway causing $9K in damage.Police presence and report.
After the car was repaired,I dumped it about 7-8 weeks later.
No report of the incident on Carfax up to that point.

 

Carfax is not very reliable - first hand experience. What you really need is an independent inspection from a reliable source (dealer etc). This is especially true if you're buying off the internet and don't get to see the vehicle first hand.

 

cbc has done an investigation on carfax before, heres the story http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/200...ce-carfax.html

this video is a short version of the story
http://webcastr.com/videos/news/carf...stigation.html

I've seen the full video a year ago, will post if i can find it

update: i just found the full video, here it is
http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/2009/v...orts/main.html
enjoy!

 

I have had a couple of bad experiences with Carfax myself. First, it was on a new car. Who would have thought that I was buying a car with hail damage? They sold it as new but when I brought it in for an oil change, they said they sold it to me used and had the hail damage.
Then another time my moms car had only 19k miles on it. It was an '89. Carfax report 112,000 miles on 2 years after they bought it. I'm guessing it should have said 2,000. They were old. They didn't drive much. For a fact!
I argued with Carfax and they told me I HAD TO PROVE THE MILEAGE! What???? I didn't put the mileage on there. Carfax and the 3 credit bureaus need to be investigated. They can cause someone alot of personal harm. They have your life in their hands and they want YOU to prove THEIR mistakes. I wrote to Carfax one time and told them what happened....never heard from them again.

 

Whatever you do, get your own Carfax and/or Autocheck reports. It will cost you a few dollars, but you will be assured that the information is coming from the source.

I recently purchased a RX350 from a private party. But I almost purchased one from a dealership in Dallas called Ace Imports. They told me a certain RX350 was clean and even sent me the Carfax. Luckily, one of my colleagues decided he would pull up the same Carfax report since he had a subscription. To my surprise, Ace Imports manipulated the Carfax report to exclude an accident.

So just be sure that your information is coming from the source!

 

I'm going to tell you a word to the wise.

My own RX300 is second hand (I'm the second owner) and carfax did not show anything wrong when I got it. However, autocheck did show an accident had occurred previously with the vehicle).

In addition, in regards to what oklanny mentioned, I had similar issues with small used car dealers around here when I was shopping for the 4Runner we got last week. Although not mentioned by them or on their websites. A good percentage, greater than 75% had rebuilt or salvage titles, despite some of these dealers denying anything was wrong with the vehicle even when I popped the question about rebuilt or salvage. One thing I did see was apparent rust that had been 'painted' over. I thought it was odd because no paint should have been at that particular location underneath the vehicle.

 

In addition to the above info, some state don't require info be reported to Carfax and others. I believe Texas is one. You could very easily get a flood damaged vehicle out of one of these states.

Get dealer or current owner to provide ownership history and contact these parties if possible.