Trudy Carp
08/25/2007, 08:50 AM
Since I now work in the body shop industry, let me share with you what I know to be fact about CarFax.
The 1994 Driver Privacy Act prohibits insurance companies from sharing claims information with 3rd parties without the expressed consent of the vehicle owner. That even includes body shops. Since I don't know of any owner dumb enough to send CarFax a copy of the 17k repairs done on his 4921 mile Jeep Liberty when he rolled it with weeks of purchase, that will forever remain his secret. The ONLY, and I do mean ONLY, reason to use a CarFax report would be to ferret out odometer fraud and a salvage titled vehicle. You see, they only have access to PUBLIC records.
Until the law is changed, and that could happen due to the number of flood damaged, "washed title" Katrina vehicles that are starting to surface (with clean CarFax reports I might add), you will likely never find any reported accident or frame damage on a CarFax. Their television commercials are misleading and they know it. I emailed them once about their deceptive accident report practices and they emailed me back an attachment from their website. It was their disclaimer. Funny how it took me over an hour surfing their website to find it on my own.
We frequently run into poorly repaired prior accident damage while making body repairs on vehicles. In most cases it has to be repaired to complete the current repair to spec. Insurance companies will not pay the added expense caused by these. This comes out of the owners pocket and it doesn't matter that it's the insurance company of the guy that hit you, you'll still pay.
So, anyone out there looking for a used accident free VX? Inspect it yourself or get a body shop to do it for you. It's the only way to prevent yourself from buying a multi accident, poorly repaired, VX from hell.
The 1994 Driver Privacy Act prohibits insurance companies from sharing claims information with 3rd parties without the expressed consent of the vehicle owner. That even includes body shops. Since I don't know of any owner dumb enough to send CarFax a copy of the 17k repairs done on his 4921 mile Jeep Liberty when he rolled it with weeks of purchase, that will forever remain his secret. The ONLY, and I do mean ONLY, reason to use a CarFax report would be to ferret out odometer fraud and a salvage titled vehicle. You see, they only have access to PUBLIC records.
Until the law is changed, and that could happen due to the number of flood damaged, "washed title" Katrina vehicles that are starting to surface (with clean CarFax reports I might add), you will likely never find any reported accident or frame damage on a CarFax. Their television commercials are misleading and they know it. I emailed them once about their deceptive accident report practices and they emailed me back an attachment from their website. It was their disclaimer. Funny how it took me over an hour surfing their website to find it on my own.
We frequently run into poorly repaired prior accident damage while making body repairs on vehicles. In most cases it has to be repaired to complete the current repair to spec. Insurance companies will not pay the added expense caused by these. This comes out of the owners pocket and it doesn't matter that it's the insurance company of the guy that hit you, you'll still pay.
So, anyone out there looking for a used accident free VX? Inspect it yourself or get a body shop to do it for you. It's the only way to prevent yourself from buying a multi accident, poorly repaired, VX from hell.