repairs and carfax

Seems to me, repairing damages to your car prior to selling is counterproductive. Why? A savvy car buyer will purchase a Carfax report and STILL try to low ball. Opinions?

Reply to
Passenger
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Passenger wrote in news:2f59e5e3-cc7a-4841-85c4- snipped-for-privacy@s28g2000vbp.googlegroups.com:

Apparently Carfax is not as reliable as they make out to be:

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Reply to
Fuzzy Logic

I got a refund from Carfax when I bought my '95 Civic EX. It was listed as one owner when it fact I was buying it from the third owner. They snidely asked me if I didn't think the report was worth *anything* and I replied that since I couldn't trust the info, no. So they refunded my fee.

Reply to
Leftie

How did you find out it had had three owners before you?

I hear autocheck.com is better than carfax.com

Reply to
honda.lioness

The guy I bought it from had bought it from his uncle three years earlier. Same last name, different first. The owner's manual had the name of a third person written in it, and the kid (a college student moving back out West - I got a good deal because it was a risky sale but the car was rust-free and under book, with a new clutch and transmission) confirmed that his uncle had bought it slightly used. So Carfax had no excuse for calling it a "One Owner!" car.

Reply to
Leftie

The question is - how carfax can know if you buy a car from family relative and do not change the plates or pay taxes?? People often avoid doing paperwork to save themselves the money related to the name flip. So if he did not re-register the car after the transaction within the family, carfax was not wrong saying 1-owner.

The owner's manual in my car has a third party name in it, because I have lost the original one and purchased my replacement from eBay. The memory of this college student can be fuzzy after many years, or he simply did not know the truth. I would not rely on such statement.

Your "proofs" are not convincing to me that carfax was wrong in this case. And it was dishonest to ask for the fee back after you checked dozens of cars using your 30-days access to the site... Bad, bad girl, Leftie ;-)

Reply to
Pszemol

"Pszemol" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@poczta.onet.pl:

If one family member "buys" the car from another member but never changes the legal ownership, it is NOT a legal ownership transfer. The car is still legally owned by the person shown on the ownership papers, whom the family now considers the "previous" owner.

The family may consider the car "owned" by the current "owner", but the government and insurance company most certainly will not accept that as legal if the legal papers are in the "previous" owner's name.

If there is in fact a LEGAL transfer of ownership, the the ownership papers will reflect that fact, showing the name of the new owner. This may also entail tax payments, new plates and other such. Some jurisdictions (such as mine) waive the sales tax when a car is sold from one family member to another, provided a sworn affidavit is made that the car has been transferred as a gift, without payment.

However, Carfax must be TOLD of any ownership changes, insurance claims, emissions failures, etc. If nobody tells, Carfax doesn't know.

Reply to
Tegger

Who is it who is supposed to "tell" Carfax? I assumed it was Carfax getting the info from government sources. Otherwise, with only passive data collection, they have no basis at all to make the claims that they make.

And just to clarify what should already be clear: the car was registered under the student's name. It had previously been registered under his uncle's name. Does anyone really think that Carfax would have declined to defend their claim if they had any basis to do so...? They had clearly checked, found that it was indeed a "three owner car!" and offered only the lame justification that *some* of the information they provided was true.

Reply to
Leftie

Leftie wrote in news:H7TFl.53697$e snipped-for-privacy@newsfe03.iad:

Collision info goes to no government. Only the insurance company knows. And even then they know only if a claim is made and/or if a police charge is laid.

As for ownership changes and emissions failures, those could only come from the government agencies that administer those things.

That's what I gather from what I've been able to discover.

Reply to
Tegger

Exactly my point. Carfax can collect data available in databases, but if the info is not in the database how can you collect something like this?

Reply to
Pszemol

The seller and buyer, both indirectly "tell" Carfax by registering the transaction, paying taxes, geting new plates, etc.

But if we get the situation where the car transfer was not registered than government source did not have the info.

Do they claim actively persue collecting data? Where?

:-) Right. I guess we have to believe your word...

Somehow I doubt it... They would not waste their time checking this for $40. They just give the money back because you called and cry about it.

Do I understand correctly that you will never purchase Carfax again?

Reply to
Pszemol

Yes. Further, you're just a troll who's going in my filter. Say hello to all the other teenaged boys in there. Ah, usenet...

Reply to
Leftie

"'CarFax gets reports from 22,000 sources,' said company spokesman Larry Gamache. He said CarFax has more information than any other provider of car history data but said it doesn't have access to all information."

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Reply to
z

Good. That would be consistent with your complaint.

Why would I care ? Why would anybody care here who do you read and who you dont? It is your personal choice.

Reply to
Pszemol

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