If a CARFAX HAS THIS, LEAVE IMMEDIATELY | 5 Red Flags

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With used car prices steadily heading down, more and more people may be looking at buying one. Looking at the CarFax is an important part of the routine, but not all reports are created equal. Ray and Zach go through 5 red flags you may see in CarFax reports. If you see any of these, be very cautious.

[flanigas]

Lack of service history on a carfax is not the same as a lack of service. I do all the regular maintenance on my cars at the recommended intervals. So outside of my own records there is no official record for those services. A good mechanic can tell if a car was well taken care of or not without a service history.

[macsloan]

CARFAX really needs to add a narrative section to the accidents reported on a vehicle. I have a pickup that will show rear damage from a collision. I got bumped (literally bumped) in the tailgate by a driver backing out of a parking space. However, where the damage was, directly on the latch, the tailgate needed to be replaced. So whoever buys it down the road won’t know if I was rear ended by a high speed vehicle, or maybe I backed into a telephone pole. CARFAX has a huge loophole there that needs addressed.

[jeredmansell]

A lot of commenters didn't watch to the end of the video. at 10:20 he explains that CarFax isn't the end all be all and is only as helpful as the information dealers and mechanics share. It's still a useful resources.

[brentmorgan]

I change my own oil so there is no service records on mine. Have your never heard of people that do their own service?

[Dave-zlky]

Used Carfax to find my vehicle. One owner with a car serviced every 3000 miles at a dealer. High mileage with no accidents. I looked for the Sienna for a year and a half. Very happy almost two years later.

[kenty]

My Camry just hit 300K miles without service history on Carfax. If I sent my Camry to the dealership to get "serviced" with all the records on Carfax, my Camry would be long gone. The service history on Carfax just showed how much the dealership had "serviced" your wallet, not your vehicle.

[qbanb]

Gaps in service history wouldn't be a huge red flag to me in some cases. Its possible that the place it gets serviced doesn't report to Carfax. I think more of them doing it now. Now I would agree a bunch of service history in a short period could be could be something to be concerned about. Especially if you're not one that is inclined to do maintenance.

[MGMidget]

Back in the 70's I'd change oil every 3k. David from automotive press recently had a Japanese Toyota engineer mechanic on his video that he interviewed. The gentleman recommended even today to change oil every 3k. I change my Tundras every 5k without fail.

[ajantics]

Carfax is about as accurate as a 1-800 Psychic number. When my girlfriend was looking for a car we went to multipool dealers and found vehicles at dealers with "clean carfax" and "no accidents" only to visually inspect the vehicles and find clear hidden damage that would only be caused by major accidents. Yet they all had "CLEAN CARFAX with NO ACCIDENTS" As far as service history there are alot of people who buy a new vehicle out of state and they do not have a dealer close to them and bring the vehicle to a local mechanic who doesn't report to carfax. This does not mean that the vehicle was never serviced. I Even had an issue with carfax for one of my vehicles. I was trading in for a new truck. I owned the car from brand new. Only had one fender bender & the only damage to the vehicle was the front license plate punctured through the front bumper. I had it fixed with insurance. During the trade in they offered me half of what the actual trade in value was. Apparently, Carfax had a report that both front airbags went off and severe front end damage was caused. I even had the receipt from the auto body shop for the repair and all of the insurance paperwork proving this was false and it took forever to get carfax to correct their mistake. 3 months later my vehicle was worth double because carfax had the false report!

[Miami]

Many many many shops, mechanics, do it yourself types and body shops DO NOT report ANYTHING to
CarFax.
A thorough inspection is always your best bet.

[coldnorthAK]

I bought a 2002 Chevy Silverado brand new. I’m the only one who has changed the oil, tranny, diff, transfer case, coolant fluids. Truck at 200k miles the trucks still running strong.

[TheLifetraveler]

In my search for a used car this past week. One dealer put up a shiny Red 2022 Civic online for sale. They tried to stall me from seeing it, until I got frustrated and was about to leave. They finally brought the car from the back. 1) It was absolutely filthy inside, as if a family of 7 vacationed in it for a year. 2) There was a piece missing from the front grill. 3) It really stank. 4) But worst of all it had a big GIANT (Repo sign) written on the driver side window. Salesman, looked at me and said, "it just needs to be cleaned up". Idiot!
Carfax said it was originally a 'rental'. I used to work for a rental company taking cars to auction. So someone rented it or stole it. The rental company found it trashed. Sent it off to one of those 'redline' auctions. These folks purchased it, with the intent of fixing it up. I'm sure the photograph I saw was one of their 'new' matching Red Civics (they had five of them) in the picture. But they used the vin number associated with the repo. Dastardly, just dastardly!

[theonlybuster]

Look at the Carfax BUT do not accept it as the end all be all. Use it as a general guidance. This example was extreme and should have been an obvious bad investment.

Now I have had 4 services in 1 month. The first was a 100k routine check. 2 was simple warranty work (rear view mirror issue). It had to be shipped so I kept the vehicle until the part came in but on the carfax there's a report of it being serviced that day. 3 was me returning to have a new mirror installed and they replaced my oil for compensation for the delay. And 4 was due to the mechanic not installing my plastic under carriage that resulted in it coming off on the interstate but they replaced it (their cost) on the 4th trip.
So if you look at my car's carfax you'll see 4 services in 1 month.

Simply stated, review it and take it with a grain of sand. It paints a picture but in most cases not a complete pic

[ToddMurphyhealthylife]

I see you have 295, 000 subscribers. I started watching you when you had 17.4k subscribers. I've loved every minute over the past year and a half. Thanks for the info guys.

[BunkMasterFlex]

A lot of small mechanic shops don't report data including my shop. You can save your records but that doesn't help a 2nd or 3rd owner.

[proverbs]

I’ve had a Toyota dealership salesman actually tell me with all of these services such as what you mentioned is actually a good thing and how well kept the car has been taken care of. Over half of these services wasn’t your typical oil change or some typical service, but other more serious issues. So to all the viewers expect a lying salesman try to flip the script and say it’s a good thing all these services have been done. I was nice and said no thanks, but that is not what I was thinking by any stretch of the imagination!

[jjcoulterxxx]

Great topic. I play detective with vehicle CARFAX reports as well. Knowing major flood month-year and cold weather states that use road salt, for example, can be inferred from these reports to help focus pre-sale inspection.

[boatlover]

I have to say I had a 1999 Ford Ranger and the Carfax history might have looked similar for the first 100k. I changed my own oil and filter every 3-5k miles, gave it to my son 12 years later and it is still running strong. Just before giving it to him, I took it to a mechanic and had him completely inspect it and fix anything that was showing wear. Who knows what that repair looks like on the report.

[esoterical]

I have a 2k2 Ford F-150 that was bought brand new off the show room. Oil changes were performed by me every 3k miles and now it sits with 87k miles. Also the air filter and coolant levels were changed when needed. Other services were performed by the dealer at recommended mileage. The first time my truck graced the dealer was about 2k9 for trans fluid and other standard 30k stuff. I'll be driving it for another 20 years.

Trusting your purchase to just service records will only get you so far.

[jeffsmith]

I do my own oil/filter changes so our F150 would show zero oil changes with 114, 000 miles. It would however show recall mileage.