How to Read the CarFax

There is a wealth of information in a CarFax Report – too much in fact.

Click here to see a CarFax and print it off and lets go over that report.

The major sections of CarFax:

Vehicle History Report:

Anything and everything known about a car is in the Vehicle History Report section.  Contained within this section are the following topics:

• Vehicle History Report
• Price Calculator
• Ownership History
• Title History
• Additional History
• Hot Listings
• Detailed History

The History Report part of the CarFax Report is a handy way to summarize the entire report.  In this case this car has structural damage and has been in car accidents.  RUN from this car it’s a turkey.  RED ALERT folks – with 255,000,000 cars on the road, in America, don’t mess around with this turkey.

Price Calculator:

CarFax has calculated a price reduction to the price listed in BlueBook or other resale price books.  It’s a fun number to use as a guide when negotiating but you need to double or triple this number since the seller will do the opposite. 

Ownership History:

 If there are a lot of owners, 3 or more, this is a turkey of a car – avoid.

Title History:

 If you don’t see the “Guaranteed” bypass this car.

Additional History:

Personally, If I don’t see all green and white check boxes I pass on this car – like the one above.  Why on earth buy someone else’s problems?

Hot Listings:

CarFax has a “Hot Listings” system which has current used cars for sale.

Detailed History:

Vehicle Highlights

This, of course, should be read first and the detail second – assuming you see all “Green”.  If you see anything but green then forget this car.

 SmartBuyer Checklist:

Good grief!  What a whimpy checklist – use my checklist for a real checklist with some meat and bones.

Warranty Check:

This is a handy place to recap all the various warranties covering the car.

Safety & Reliability Report

Buyback Guarantee

 Link to this page

 Link to this page