Looking for advise from someone familiar with this process
How do I go about obtaining proper documentation to submit to carfax
purchased a vehicle with a clean carfax to find out the vehicle has been involved in an accident with frame damage
Yet another CarFax testimonial (not).
Try their website, but if that doesn’t help I have no idea.
You can try but you don’t give vehicle info. If your paper work on what must be a used vehicle says " As Is " you have no recourse. Also Carfax only reports what is sent to them.
The shop that did your pre-purchase inspection should have found that.
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OP did not mention any pre-purchase inspection . . .
It’s possible/probable there in fact was no pre-purchase inspection on the part of the buyer
The Carfax Buyback Guarantee ensures against a branded title, not that the car has never been damaged;
“Plus, the exclusive CARFAX Buyback Guarantee reduces the risk involved in buying a used car. If the CARFAX Report fails to include a DMV-issued branded title (such as salvage, fire or flood damage, and odometer problems), CARFAX may buy the vehicle back for the full purchase price*”
If you purchased this vehicle from a dealer return and discuss your findings, they may decide to put you in a different vehicle.
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Additional info snagged right off CarFax’s site:
Specifically excluded from the definition of “Branded Title” for the purposes of this CARFAX Buyback Guarantee are:
- titles originally issued without a brand but later stamped with a brand without being reissued;
- salvage titles issued due to theft;
- damage disclosure documents and Branded Titles issued in error and later corrected.
The last line is the important one. Looks like they don’t make any guarantees if damage has occurred that CarFax didn’t catch and that the state didn’t define as salvage or rebuilt.
I am not a lawyer, but sure looks like you have no claim.
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You’re out of luck. Carfax doesn’t guarantee that the car hasn’t been wrecked. They just guarantee that they have no record of it being wrecked.
Look at it this way. If you drive your car into a ditch today, you can call a tow truck, bring the car to your house, you and your brother can patch it up using junkyard parts and then take it to Maaco for a $200 paint job. There will never be any record of anything having been done to the car.
Even if the repairs were done at a body shop or auto service facility, there is no guarantee that the repairs will be on the Carfax report, as the data reporting is voluntary. I’m the manager at an auto shop, and we purposely do not participate in Carfax. We do this because we value our customer’s right to privacy. It’s nobody’s business that Mrs. Smith’s Toyota had an oil change and brake job at 62,000 miles.
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Just like eBay Motors Vehicle Protection, the fine print always puts a different spin on things…
Note with Carfax the line is Carfax MAY buy the vehicle back. There’s a huge difference between MAY and WILL.
ABC’s 20/20 did an expose’ story on Carfax a dozen years ago. The story revolved around a guy who bought a late model Corvette and discovered the car had not just been wrecked at some point but had been wiped clean out.
Many years ago a dealer I worked for took in trade a near new Chevy with only 2500 miles on it. The car was as new inside and out. It sold in a heartbeat. Problems started surfacing and on the 3rd visit back to us a co-worker pulled up the front carpet and discovered the car was actually 2 vehicles that had been welded together right along wthere the front occupants feet rest.
My boss bought the car back and scrapped it due to it being so unsafe. It had a clean Carfax too…