Can You Rely On Vehicle History Reports From Carfax?

Key Takeaways:

• Carfax can’t report everything that happens to a car.
• Only 27 states give Carfax access to police reports, meaning some damage may go un-noted.
• Hire a Mechanic to look the car over if you want to be really sure of its condition.

When shopping for a used car, one of the key tenets of advice given to car buyers is to get a vehicle history report from Carfax. This report is often viewed as a magical, one-stop source of all available information about a car’s history, but how accurate is it? You might be surprised by how inaccurate vehicle history report information can be.

Carfax gets its information from dozens of sources, including state records, automobile manufacturers, and consumer protection agencies. While Carfax boasts an impressive number of sources, there are a number of gaps in their database. Much of Carfax’s accident information is based upon title branding and police reports. But these two sources on their own say very little about a vehicle’s accident history. A vehicle’s title is only changed when the vehicle is involved in a major accident, usually meaning that 75 percent or more of the vehicle is damaged. Meanwhile, Carfax only has access to police reports in 27 states, making its accident records less than complete.

Even if Carfax gathered police reports from all fifty states, the record would still be incomplete, because insurance companies do not report claim payments. That means that, if a vehicle is involved in an accident and a claim is paid by insurance, but no police report is filed, Carfax has no way of knowing about it.

The fact is, Carfax is not a reliable way to verify a vehicle’s condition with certainty. The only sure bet is to have the car thoroughly examined by a good mechanic, who can tell you for sure just what has happened to the car.

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