Carfax is OK. But, there are ways to sell bad cars with or without Carfax.
I take potential car purchases to a friend who runs a body shop. He puts it
on the lift and lets me know what's up.
I've seen many perfectly good cars with salvage titles and many cars with
good titles that should have salvage titles.
Our last used car buy was a Cherokee from a dealership's used car area. It
was a trade in. The dealer's inspection report showed "noise in rear end".
(If looking at a used car from dealership, ask for thier mechanic's
inspection report.) After the having it inspected by my friend with the
body shop and deciding the price was fair, even if I had to spend up to
$1500 to have the rear end repaired or replaced, we bought it. I pulled the
wheels, brakes, etc, off the rear and inspected it myself. I could not
determine what was causing the little clicking sound from the rear.
Everything looked good to me. We took it to a good mechanic I know for his
professional opinion. He charged me $20 to tell me that the driver's side
hub cap was causing the noise. Duh! I know these things and was thinking
"ring and pinion bearing failure". So, we got a good deal on what my wife
wanted and I had to shell out $20 for a used hub cap to fix the noise
problem.
Anyway, I would get a Carfax report, but not consider it the be-all end-all
truth about the car. If is negative, then it worked. If it is positive,
then the car may be good.
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