Carfax, Buying Used, & Craigslist.org

"Dave Garrett" > wrote
> I've found Carfax to be quite useful on several occasions
> in the past.
> The $35 30-day membership is cheap compared to the cost of
> a car, and
> the Carfax data isn't always 100% accurate or complete,
> but as long as
> you recognize that, it works pretty well for a
> quick-and-dirty
> assessment of past problems.
>
> One of those Carfax dealer ads is how I recently acquired
> my '00 Civic
> Si. I'd been looking for a clean, unmolested '99-'00 Si
> for a couple of
> months with limited results - most of the ones I ran
> across via
> Craigslist or another local forum were either ragged out
> from rough
> treatment, had high mileage with no way to verify the
> service history
> (or lack thereof), or had modifications I wasn't thrilled
> about. I'm not
> entirely averse to modded cars when they're well thought
> out and done to
> a professional standard, but those kinds of cars tend to
> be the
> exception rather than the rule.

I am finding this problem with Craig's List, too: Too many
darn kids with their crappy mods selling cars owned by a
zillion people already.

At this point, clean and relatively unmolested is worth
another grand or two to me. I can deal with high mileage
(say 70k - 170k miles).

> Anyway, I was checking the VIN on Carfax for an Si I was
> considering
> going to check out, when an ad popped up stating something
> like "you
> might also be interested in this vehicle" for an '00 Civic
> Si with only
> 53K miles. It was at a local dealer, so I got on the phone
> and called
> them immediately. The salesdroid sounded confused
> initially when I asked
> about the car, then after looking it up, hesitantly
> offered that they
> still had the car. I went out to look at it, and it turned
> out that
> they'd just gotten it as a trade-in a couple of days
> previously. It was
> still in the service bay awaiting cleanup and servicing,
> was filthy
> inside and out, and they wouldn't let me drive it until
> they'd checked
> it out. But it appeared to be solid, no evidence of ever
> having been
> wrecked (confirmed by Carfax, for what that's worth), and
> the interior
> was in really good shape for an 8-year-old car. It cleaned
> up quite
> nicely, and I wound up buying it before it ever hit the
> lot. The only
> flaw I've been able to find is that 5th gear grinds
> slightly. There's a
> TSB for this which recommends replacing the 5th-reverse
> gear cluster
> (and probably the synchros), but given how much that's
> likely to cost,
> I'll probably just live with it unless it gets worse.

I am trying to pounce on these, too. Gotta pay dealer used
prices, but as I say above I may be willing to at this
point. Every time I call the dealer rep says it's been sold
or they have to check on it. I will stick with it, though.
The dealer cars seem to always check out with pretty clean
titles on Carfax.

I am wondering if there is a quicker way of getting this
info out of Carfax, rather than putting in a VIN and seeing
the ads pop up.

Good post. Thanks.