Carfax accident impact to price

If you find a car that you like but it has an accident reported to Carfax how would this impact your offer, assuming PPI comes back with no issue and the repair was done professionally? It's for an early C6 so cars in the mid $20K range if that matters. Will you withdraw your offer, ask the seller to lower the price, do something else? The thing is sometimes Carfax doesn't give any details on the severity of the accident so it's hard to gauge.

My main concern even if the repair has been done professionally is that when it come time for me to sell the car I'd have a hard time finding a buyer. What do you guys think?

Depends on whether it was a minor fender bender, or a near-total, or somewhere in between. If you look at the car and can't tell, chances are it was minor.

Unless the car is exceedingly rare or a great deal, I'd generally walk away and find another sample that wasn't in an accident (verified through Carfax/Autocheck as well as an in-person inspection).

Now, if you can ensure the PPI includes a more comprehensive look into the area that was damaged and the seller is willing to offer a significant discount, then that may work out. The downside is that any negative Carfax activity will ding resale significantly (good for you now, not so good when you go to sell).

In talking C6 Corvettes, IMHO there are too many babied examples around to go for a sub-par sample. I think the negative CarFax activity will make it tougher to sell in the future. For an Elise where it's exceedingly difficult/prohibitively expensive to buy a perfect example, buying a rebuilt/damaged car may be a more viable option.

In reply to dj06482:

And that is why I dislike those services with a passion, light or proper repairs get dinged about as seriously as totals in their minds. Otherwise, they've nailed you hook, line, and sinker for the business model that keeps them in money.

Trust me, I've had my fair share of fun with Carfax. My '92 SSP notchback was reported as a branded title because of its police service use. I had to go through a lot of hoops to have that fixed, and it was a royal pain. The burden of proof is entirely on the owner, and as the owner, you have no real authority to make them fix it.

Our minivan is a great example, it's been in two accidents. The first involved the fender and front headlight being replaced, and the second involved us being rear-ended in NJ. Neither did any significant damage, and the 2nd one wasn't any worse than getting bumped in the parking lot. Both show up in Carfax, and will make it much tougher to sell. If I was looking for a minivan, I know I'd avoid anything with two accidents, as plenty of examples appear to have none (at least according to Carfax). The truth is that both accidents were very minor, but Carfax doesn't reflect that.

carfax is a scam

Pictures and documentation. If the owner is meticulous enough to have photographed damage in addition to the body shop repair docs then that's a good sign and also helps you tell the story at resale time. No docs on the repairs? Assume the worst and proceed with caution.

my Malibu was involved in an accident when my grandmother owned it. She backed into a truck and broke out the rear taillight and scratched the trunk lid.. it shows up as an accident on Carfax

Carfax is just another tool in the car buying process I use. In general I use it and autocheck, do mine own inspection, and sometimes get a ppi. I've got some valuable info from both reports in the past.

Cotton wrote: Carfax is just another tool in the car buying process I use. In general I use it and autocheck, do mine own inspection, and sometimes get a ppi. I've got some valuable info from both reports in the past.

The thing is the next buyer when it comes time for me to sell the car may weigh the report more than I do. I've been having E36 M3ty luck in my car search. Before this one with accident that the current owner wasn't even aware of, I had a deal to buy a 2011 Grand Sport for $33.5k assuming the PPI checks out. The seller later called me and told me that, and this is a quote, his girlfriend got a new job so he doesn't need to sell the car anymore. Today I found out that the shop where he was supposed to take it for a PPI has it in their inventory for $39.5k. He could've just told me that they offered him more money than made up some half ass story. Today I saw a C5Z that's in a good shape only to find out that there was some bogus roll back flag. What happened was the previous owner took it to a shop that put some random mileage into the system that's way higher than the actual mileage so when he took it to a Chevy dealer the next time and the dealer put the right mileage that's lower than what the other shop previously put, it is now flagged as roll back..arrghh..I think I need to take a break from my car search..

Datsun1500 wrote:

mad_machine wrote: my Malibu was involved in an accident when my grandmother owned it. She backed into a truck and broke out the rear taillight and scratched the trunk lid.. it shows up as an accident on Carfax

What should it show as?

It shows up as an accident to the rear corner of the car. I forget the exact terminology, but the way it was worded, it sounded really bad

This is my colossal beef with Carfax. An accident is an accident; no matter if it was a scratch to the bumper that needed repainted or half the car was cut off and replaced. I've long felt that they should attach a dollar cost to the accident repairs so severity could be judged.

Carfax is a tool but is horrifically unreliable. Unfortunately, fantastic marketing have convinced the public otherwise.

ddavidv wrote: This is my colossal beef with Carfax. An accident is an accident; no matter if it was a scratch to the bumper that needed repainted or half the car was cut off and replaced. I've long felt that they should attach a dollar cost to the accident repairs so severity could be judged. Carfax is a tool but is horrifically unreliable. Unfortunately, fantastic marketing have convinced the public otherwise.

I agree and disagree at the same time. You are totally on point that Carfax is a tool...I guess in the both good and bad sense of the word. It's useful in doing your research and I'm all for it when used in that context. Like you said the marketing has done a great job capitalizing on public fear and created this stigma now that makes any car with any kind of a "mark" on it seem like it has VD. Ridiculous.

Where I disagree with you to some extent is in attaching a dollar cost to repairs to help make your decision. Not coincidentally, as you know, it's the same problem you run into when trying to calculate diminished value in an insurance claim. People will often only look at the dollar amount of the estimate. Well, the headlights for a Benz can be over $2000 each. Add in the grille with the sensors/cameras in it and you're looking at a $7500 repair for just broken headlights and grille. Take that same damage to a base Nissan Versa/Ford Fiesta. That's a $1000 repair, for the exact same damage. You and I may know that, but we're in the industry. Most people wouldn't understand that distinction, and would think the MB was smashed, but the Nissan was scraped.

Dietcoke wrote: carfax is a scam

And yet, nearly every poster in here still utilizes it. Carfax\Autocheck are both horrifically unreliable (buried in the fine print, I believe they estimate that they capture ~25% of all accidents), but it's still a tool you need in your tool belt.

I suspect other GRMers go through cars as often as I do. I use Carfax\Autocheck just to ensure that there are no surprises for me when it comes times to divest myself of the car.

exactly.. my old 318ti had been in a terrible accident that was never reported. From what I could tell from the welding I found under and in the car, it had been hit in the side so hard that they had to replace all the sheetmetel from wheel to wheel.

Even then, the car had a very small permanent positive camber on the passenger side that no amount of adjusting could ever get rid of. Eventually I had to scrap the car due to that welding, it was never properly painted and sealed and the car rotted from the inside out

Cotton wrote: Carfax is just another tool in the car buying process I use. In general I use it and autocheck, do mine own inspection, and sometimes get a ppi. I've got some valuable info from both reports in the past.

This. Carfax is just like a backup camera or stability control or ABS. It's a tool that can be valuable, but not something you should utterly rely on.

My 88 Mustang was built by a toothless hillbilly out of at least 3 other mustangs and was at one point a hatchback (sold as a coupe)

Clean carfax.

Your mileage may vary.

mad_machine wrote: exactly.. my old 318ti had been in a terrible accident that was never reported. From what I could tell from the welding I found under and in the car, it had been hit in the side so hard that they had to replace all the sheetmetel from wheel to wheel. Even then, the car had a very small permanent positive camber on the passenger side that no amount of adjusting could ever get rid of. Eventually I had to scrap the car due to that welding, it was never properly painted and sealed and the car rotted from the inside out

I close friend was rear ended hard in a 2 year old S600. They had to 1/4 cut the car and replace the driver rear corner. It was ~25k in repairs. The rear wheel in the car never lasted more than 3k miles and was north of $300 each. It measured out at the body shop as 'OK', but a $750 measure out by the Benz dealer showed it was not quiet right. After a bunch of dicking around, it was traded off and become someone elses problem.

It is because of incidents like this that people are weary of accident repairs. If you didn't see it, can you ever know what really happened?

Carfax is more valuable to see the registration history...like that clean Arizona 330i I was all set to get, until I saw that it spent it's first 6 years in the northeast. Accident data is interesting because you know SOMETHING happened, but I've seen many cars with unreported accident damage. It's better to have the info than no. I consider rust or any registration in a rust belt state, ever, worse than an accident.

carfax can die in a fire.

i'll learn all I need to know looking at a car myself.

I'd recommend not settling on your search. While buying something with an "accident" history now may seem like the easy decision, if you're going to resell it later on, you will regret it.

I was trying to buy a car out of state. Clean carfax. After spending $150 on a PPI I was told that the whole rear end was "fixed". Turns out the guy was actually a dealer and not the original owner like Carfax said. Carfax also charged me for unlimited 30 days of reports instead of the single one I bought and after 10 calls to them and my credit card I never got it resolved.

they blow.

A lot of manufacturers won't let the dealer certify a used car without a clean CarFax (and only CarFax, you can show them all the others, but it's a no go). This gives CarFax power like you can't believe and they use it, brother, they use it.

Would you guys be concerned about an error by a repair shop in inputting the mileage that caused Carfax to flag the car as potentially having roll back issue? I think there is enough evidence to give me some comfort that this is an honest mistake by a shop that's too lazy to enter the right mileage. Again, the concern is more on future resale not necessarily the car itself.

Carfax can be a grey area with accidents as everybody has mentioned. It could be a minor ding up or a real bad one. I think you have to read a little bit between the lines when going to look at a car and take it with a grain of salt. The program itself is a necessary evil in the car world since there aren't any other programs like it that has the reputation or perception with the general public like it does.