Are vehicle history reports reliable? What the reports may not be telling you.

So you think you have just been ripped off by a false vehicle history report.  You just brought home your dream car only to find out that your vehicle is not one, but a combination of two different cars, pieced back together.  How could this happen? You had the dealer show you the vehicle history report which stated "no prior accidents." 

Now you are stuck with a $15,000 car loan on a car that may not even be worth $5000. So who's fault is it? Do you blame Carfax? The dealer? Or the auction the dealer bought the car from? Or is it your fault fot not having it professionally inspected?

Well lets dig into this a little deeper.  You got a Carfax, the "most trusted and reliable" source of car history reports right? Your $35 just earned you a criminal background check on your car right? You should be able to trust a company that spends millions of dollars on advertising that touts the slogan "available at reputable dealers."  So what if I told you that the Carfax report doesn't have ALL the information.  And that when you buy the report they actually even say in their disclaimer that they don't have all the information.   Would you be a little less confidant in their services?

What if you were selling you car, and couldn't get the money you deserved for it because a vehicle history report, mistakenly listed your vehicle as being in a prior accident.  How would that effect you? Did you now that even if you find something wrong on the car that is not listed in the vehicle history report, the dealer is in no way obligated to take the car back if the car was sold "as is"? 

Autocheck, which is backed by Experian (yes the credit bureau), is a rival competitor of Carfax. Well not really a rival because Autocheck really does little to competitively advertise their services, which is why very few consumers know about them.  Primarily it is the dealers who rely on Autocheck, because they also get their information directly from auto auctions.  Carfax does not have as broad of a base with the auto auctions as Autocheck does, which limits the accuracy of the heavily advertised brand.  Carfax may have information that is presented a bit more user friendly but unfortunately a lot less accurate, and it may not even be their fault. So why is Autocheck considered more accurate?

Autocheck gets information from insurance companies as well as from law enforcement, consumers and other affiliates just like Carfax. Truth be told even the information on the Autocheck is not 100%.  Mainly because there is no law in place currently forcing insurance companies to disclose or share the information  they collect with auctions dealers and us, the consumers who ultimately end up getting these previously wrecked cars.

But there's hope.  There is a title system designed to help.  It's called NMVTIS which stands for the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System was designed to be a one stop shop database for all car title information for all states.  This would help prevent someone from taking a flood car say from Hurricane Katrina, fixing it up, retitling it and then reselling it in GA as if nothing  had ever happened to it.  The system in place has loop holes where people can circumvent the system.  Not to mention the fact that insurance companies do not want to participate as it would force them to release valuable information on car values, previous accident, salvaged titles and more. They were the ones who worked diligently to prevent the supposedly destroyed "cash for clunkers" cars from appearing back in the market.

Currently Legislation is being written to mandate disclosure laws  that would force them to share the data but until then the gas in the system allow previously wrecked, stolen, and salvaged cars to get sold on the market  year after year.  Many people including the NADA ( National Automobile Dealers Association) are working relentlessly to get this changed as it would make vehicle history reports more timely and complete.

State Farm in fact settled a $40 million lawsuit after being sued for improperly selling and titling previously wrecked vehicles.

While it seems at first glance fair to blame the dealer for the junk you just bought, there is a good chance the dealer didn't even know about it.  Especially if they looked at the same Carfax you did.  Even if they did an Autocheck there is never a 100% guarantee that every defect will be found.  So the key here is to know the law.  Vehicle history reports are very similar to your credit report.  Each bureau may have different things on them, so items on one report maybe totally different from what's reported on a different report.  Items may show up on there that may not even be correct, and some things that should be on there may not appear at all.  Ultimately the vehicle history reports are limited by the information they receive, and while we can assume they will never be 100% accurate , they would be much more reliable if the insurance companies disclosed the information to all interested parties not  just the one's they feel entitled to sharing the data with.

Until the laws are changed we continue to rely on physical inspections the integrity of the seller and the help of a Vehicle History Report such as Carfax or AutoCheck.

Have you ever bought a Carfax/Autocheck report?  Did you find it was accurate?

Should insurance companies be forced to disclosed total loss information to DMV's and third  party agents like Autocheck and Carfax?  What do you think?

www.AutoCheck.com

www.Carfax.com