Which is better Carfax or Autocheck or are they the same?
01-28-2005, 09:58 AM
#1
Burning Brakes
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Which is better Carfax or Autocheck or are they the same?
Has anyone used Autocheck before? I think it's a little cheaper and it looks like you get the same information.
01-29-2005, 12:14 AM
#2
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I am a dealer and we used to Carfax every purchase/trade. We now use Autocheck because they are way cheaper and have turned up some things that other sources have missed.
01-29-2005, 09:56 AM
#3
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Carfax vs Autocheck
From what I understand, neither may have complete information. While both services will contain registration and emission testing dates, accident information may not be complete because of the way they buy their information. Both have insurance company and law enforcement sources that they buy information from, but Carfax may have exclusive agreements with some companies and vice versa. So if Carfax has an exclusive agreement with, for example, American Family, their information may not appear on Autocheck. (I used American Family as a hypothetical example). Conversely, there are insurance companies whose records will probably not appear on Carfax for the same reason. I always run one of each just to make sure I am not missing any information.
The reports for the most part have eliminated including mileages from emission testing stations because they were so often unreliable. Sometimes they were downright inaccurate, other times they would round to the nearest thousand miles which would trigger erroneous "odometer rollback" warnings because of a conflicting mileage reading usually reported by a DMV at change of ownership.
Autocheck started as a service to auto auctions, because early on, Carfax did not seem to want anything to do with auctions. After time, they realized that auctions can be a valuable source of information to them because over 10 million vehicles are sold at auctions every year.
Hope this helps.
Jeff
The reports for the most part have eliminated including mileages from emission testing stations because they were so often unreliable. Sometimes they were downright inaccurate, other times they would round to the nearest thousand miles which would trigger erroneous "odometer rollback" warnings because of a conflicting mileage reading usually reported by a DMV at change of ownership.
Autocheck started as a service to auto auctions, because early on, Carfax did not seem to want anything to do with auctions. After time, they realized that auctions can be a valuable source of information to them because over 10 million vehicles are sold at auctions every year.
Hope this helps.
Jeff
01-30-2005, 03:10 PM
#4
I used both when I was Corvette shopping a year ago. Mostly because Carfax only allows a single 30 day subscription in any 6 month period. I was shopping for about 3 months, so my AutoChek subscription started when my Carfax stopped. Very similar, but I think I'd go with AutoChek the next time since their subscription policy is less restrictive.
02-07-2005, 02:10 PM
#6
Burning Brakes
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I got the Autocheck but I think you guys are right about it missing accident info because the car I'm looking at someone ran it through a central insurance database and it shows the car was wrecked twice but Autocheck shows it clean.
02-07-2005, 03:06 PM
#7
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St. Jude Donor '06-'07-'08-'09-'10-'11-'12
Originally Posted by 69lt1
From what I understand, neither may have complete information. While both services will contain registration and emission testing dates, accident information may not be complete because of the way they buy their information. Both have insurance company and law enforcement sources that they buy information from, but Carfax may have exclusive agreements with some companies and vice versa. So if Carfax has an exclusive agreement with, for example, American Family, their information may not appear on Autocheck. (I used American Family as a hypothetical example). Conversely, there are insurance companies whose records will probably not appear on Carfax for the same reason. I always run one of each just to make sure I am not missing any information.
The reports for the most part have eliminated including mileages from emission testing stations because they were so often unreliable. Sometimes they were downright inaccurate, other times they would round to the nearest thousand miles which would trigger erroneous "odometer rollback" warnings because of a conflicting mileage reading usually reported by a DMV at change of ownership.
Autocheck started as a service to auto auctions, because early on, Carfax did not seem to want anything to do with auctions. After time, they realized that auctions can be a valuable source of information to them because over 10 million vehicles are sold at auctions every year.
Hope this helps.
Jeff
The reports for the most part have eliminated including mileages from emission testing stations because they were so often unreliable. Sometimes they were downright inaccurate, other times they would round to the nearest thousand miles which would trigger erroneous "odometer rollback" warnings because of a conflicting mileage reading usually reported by a DMV at change of ownership.
Autocheck started as a service to auto auctions, because early on, Carfax did not seem to want anything to do with auctions. After time, they realized that auctions can be a valuable source of information to them because over 10 million vehicles are sold at auctions every year.
Hope this helps.
Jeff
I had a Camaro that was is a $14k accident and it still today has not come up on the carfax. Go figure.
