I knew Carfax was unreliable but holy cow.

A short trip down memory lane: In 2002, I spec'd and ordered a brand new 2002 C4S in Arctic Silver exterior and Boxster Red interior. I loved that car. I took delivery of the car at my go-to dealership in Houston in July 2002. On a rainy Saturday morning, at around 11am, in April 2004, I was headed into the office to do some work and hydroplaned on a wet road, spun into the median, and hit a tree at a pretty good speed. Single car accident, thankfully. I did not lose consciousness, but I was transported to the hospital by ambulance. I was lucky and suffered only a concussion. One bystander had witnessed the accident and said she did not expect me to open the door and walk out of that car. My insurance company declared the car totaled. I eventually got a 2004 C4S, then eventually a 2006 Carrera S. I now recently bought a 2018 Carrera S Cabriolet. In going through my old things, I found my old window sticker for the car I had crashed. It had a VIN on it. For giggles, I decided to run a Carfax on the car. What I found astonished me: No mention of any accident in 2004. No mention of the car being totaled. Rather, it was imported to Ontario in September 2004 and was registered there. It is listed as having had only a single accident--a "minor" one in 2018. It is listed as having only a single owner, when clearly that's not the case, as I was the original owner. Anyway, this is what a car--which Carfax says is a one-owner vehicle that sustained only "minor" damage in a 2018 accident--looked like in 2004: And here's what the Carfax says about the car now:

Wow! My BMW had a minor fender bender (rear ended) that required a new bumper cover and some paint (about $1100) and the CarFax said it was crashed twice in 1 month and had major damage. It was a pain to sell and I got a lot less money for it due to CarFax „accuracy.“

Don't ask me how this was possible but my Touareg was in an accident but not while I owned it and it has one owner prior. When I bought the car it was clean but after I bought it... the accident was added? I was absolutely furious but nothing I can do now.

CarFax only shows accidents which were reported by insurers and/or body shops. Not all body shops report the accident, nor CarFax can identify accidents which were repaired at owner�s cost. As such, it is a very unreliable source. The best remedy in buying a used car is a full PPI at a credible dealer or Indy. Dealers do a thorough job because they don�t want to be sued for negligence/omission.

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But a car that was totaled out by an insurance company should show on the carfax I believe. That part is surprising to me in this case.

Since I live in Ontario....... Wow. The carfax totally missed the major accident. Wonder if it was shipped to Ontario, and repaired here. Would love to see this car today and see what shape it is in..... For giggles, try the VIN here: Vehicle History and Vehicle Inspection Report (VIR) (gov.on.ca)

WOW! That was quite a shot! Glad you were ok. CarFax = worthless as only as good as what gets reported. I wonder if the title even shows "salvage"? Curious if there is a way to "wash" the title by sending it to Canada. Anyway. Due diligence is always the best way.

Carfax is far from scripture I wish we cold move away from considering it as such. OR improve it

Interesting case and a bit scary. Below is CarFax's "buyback" guarantee. It applies for anything that was reported by a DMV. Not sure how they could not report it when the insurance company was involved, but I'm guessing the DMV never reported it. https://support.carfax.com/article/w...back-guarantee What is the CARFAX Buyback Guarantee? The CARFAX Buyback Guarantee helps protect consumers from unknowingly buying a vehicle with a DMV-issued title brand, such as Salvage, Junk, Rebuilt, Fire, Flood, Hail, Lemon/Manufacturer Buyback, Not Actual Mileage, or Exceeds Mechanical Limits. If you find that any of these title problems were reported by a DMV and not included in this report, CARFAX will buy this vehicle back according to the terms and conditions of the Guarantee.

I got bit bad by an inaccurate carfax 2005 Suburban that went through Hurricane Katrina. They even fooled the Chevrolet Dealer who sold it to me as a GM Certified Used. I did my homework, but still got buffooned.

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Just curious if you tried to get CarFax's buyback guarantee? Seems to be contingent upon DMV reporting the issues.

One of the people who worked in another division of the company I worked for also used CarFax to purchase a lightly used Toyota from a Toyota dealer. Within a few months of ownership, the car's roof started to have paint issues and revealed that it was originally yellow, not black...rather strange considering that it was sold through a dealership. Subsequent other issues became more than an annoyance when the vehicle was towed back to the dealer nearly a dozen times. After frustrations with the dealers handling the vehicle's repair, the owner contacted his attorney to take the issue to the small claims court. Within a week of the posting, the dealer attempted to contact the owner and make amends; however, the court date was now set in stone and was proceeding. A few days later, a detective from the police department came to the owner's house to confirm the odometer and vehicle vin number. Interestingly enough, within an hour, the police and a tow truck drove into the driveway and took the vehicle to the impound area. Now here is where it gets interesting: during the court proceedings, the judge asked for both parties' attorneys to meet with him in his chambers for a discussion. When the court was reconvened, the judge announced a settlement had been reached. The judge turned to the car dealer and their attorneys and demanded that all of the plaintiff's car rental costs, fuel costs, vehicle tow costs, and all expenses be reimbursed and that the dealer was to give the plaintiff a FREE car matching all of the options as the car in question.... .FREE It was later discovered that the car was stolen and in an accident and .....through some magic was somehow sold by this dealer. It must have been quite interesting to be in the judge's chambers and listen to the dealer's attorneys. The bottom line here is that CarFax's records are not always accurate, nor are the various vehicle merchants honest; however, in this case, the little guy won one for the team.

Drifting a bit off the topic but I'm curious about the repairs that were made to your former car. A few years ago I had a serious accident in an STi. I pulled into an intersection despite there being another vehicle about to occupy said space. The front of my car was wiped sideways about a foot. It looked a lot like your car only the impact crater was the shape of a Honda CRV. Car was rightly totaled. I called my indy and he immediately told me he'd pay me $500 more than whatever it cost me to buy the car back. I did. He did. Fast forward a year or so. Former indy sends me an email asking me if I wanted to buy my car back. He was intending to strip it for parts but found someone who was able to completely replace the entire front clip. I bit, went and looked. The car was perfect. No, really. Everything that had sustained damage was ahead of the passenger compartment, and all of that stuff is designed to absorb impact. Chop it off, replace it, and you're back in business. Yes the work is extensive and has to be done to a good standard, but it can be done. I took my old, totaled, reconstructed STi for a drive. It was just as tight and straight and responsive and giddy fun as it was before the accident. I didn't buy it back. I should have. tl;dr it is possible to fix a car with the damage shown in that picture. Apparently that is what happened in your case.

Aye that was a gorgeous 4S too.. Goes to show nothing beats a physical inspection.

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That car was definitely gorgeous. It was the only Porsche I�ve ever spec�d exactly like I wanted, with no compromises. I�ve bought 4 Porsches new and now 1 used, and none had the exact, precise set of options I wanted like that C4S.

What's the solution to the "unreluable" Carfax service then? Easy to be part of the complaining side.

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Always buy new? just kidding. It�s what people here have already said. Independent PPI, paint meter.

Yep, I bought an 07 Cayman from a dealer in NJ in 2013 and had both a carfax and autochek done which came back no accidents. When I went to sell in 2019 I ran a new carfax and autochek and one, if not both of them (can't remember), came back with an accident (it actually might have been 2 with different dates). I tried to pursue more details with these sites but was told that they "had verified there was an accident." They could tell me no further details. The date of these accident(s) was BEFORE I bought the car and had obtained "clean" reports....?? Needless to say, I took somewhat of a beating when I sold the car in terms of price. No, I never had a PPI done by the dealer on that car before I bought it- I have learned since then lol.

Only a handful of C4S in Ontario with that interior and mileage. I wonder who ended up with it. My car was originally a US car as well and it has me thinking. I know it sustained a minor accident at some point (which showed on the carfax).

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I would guess in this instance you might have been able to leverage CarFax's warranty where they would buy the car back (I linked/quoted their warranty in an earlier post). I suspect most of the time DMV doesn't report the accident -- but since yours showed up, they must have reported it. I don't think a PPI will give you any documented accident history (I know, for example, Porsche dealers don't have access to other Porsche dealer's service records (at least for the dealers I've dealt with)). An obviously poor repair to major damage might possibly be detectable, but I think that, far more often, the entire affected body panels and suspension components are replaced, so there probably isn't much evidence to find in the typical case.

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This has happened to a few dealers. There is a time lag between accidents and updates at Carfax. I know one case where the dealer bought the car back and another customer received additional discount on vehicle. Dealer may do something for you and it is worth asking.

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I wouldn't be surprised if there were only one C4S in Ontario with Boxster Red interior, Porsche crests in headrests, and exterior-colored (Arctic Silver) center console. Well, whoever it is, I hope s/he's been enjoying it in good health.

The insurance company sold it and didn't list it as totaled because that would have effected how much they can sell it for. Imported to Canada at a very low value to save on taxes.

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Correct - I took the point of this post to be "if you use Carfax to quell your fears of buying a car sight unseen, well..." Doubles-down my position of never buy a car sight unseen. But then again I'm kind of a weenie in that way.

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It doesn't make you a weenie; it makes you careful. I just bought a 991.2 Cabriolet from the Porsche dealership in Greensboro, NC. I'm in Houston, TX. To vet this car, I had the dealer take additional pictures, including close-ups of areas I was particularly interested in; I had an independent shop do a PPI; I asked to see all service records; and then I spent $1000 flying roundtrip to the dealership to check out the car and drive it (I left my house for the airport at 5:30am and didn't get back home until midnight). These cars ain't cheap, so either spend some extra money now to check out the car, or potentially spend a lot of extra money later fixing it (or losing money on resale) because of unknown issues. And I would do this even if the car is CPO (which my 2018 is).

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You really don't trust the dealer. I don't blame you. Damn, I was just in Austin for MotoGP and would have delivered your car to Houston for gas money... One can never be too careful and just do the best research possible.

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No, it was years later when we figured out it was a flood vehicle.

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I imagine the car is gone now and it's water under the bridge, but I don't think the CarFax warranty has an expiration date (at least it didn't mention one). I would guess yours is the typical case where you don't figure out until years later that it wasn't accurate.

Like others, I have found that Carfax, Autocheck and the others are not reliable enough on their own. Face it, a lot of our cars have suffered "undisclosed" minor bumps and bruises and, heaven forbid, missed maintenance along the way. Complete documentation (and an honest seller) is the only real way to know what has been done to your new your Porsche along the way. They are not all garage queens. When I was buying my car (via a small dealer), I did some research and found contact info for both previous owners of my car. I had all the information from the second owner, but none before him. I managed to have a great conversation with the first owner and he sent me 25gigs of information on the car, including the original ordering paperwork from the dealer (he loved the car, but his wife did not). Yes, he keep it all, scanned it in and socked it away. I got lucky, but now I have a complete history for my car.

On the subject of carfax, does anyone have free access? I'm looking at some used parts off a salvage 996 but no idea of the mileage, I might get an idea if it was run thru carfax Vin# WP0CA29982S650838

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Bro that same thing happened to me!!! The screwed up part is the info on the Carfax is backdated to before I bought the car, it's infuriating. I was looking at maybe selling it back to the sales center that sold it to me because they've called me asking if I was interested in bringing it back since the best offer I received was $34k. Now with the accident record, they won't approve it.

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Honestly this should be brought to a lawyers attention for a possible class action lawsuit. The sole purpose of the service is to check vehicle history. They are actively screwing people over

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Man the problem is I bought the car in 2018 and honestly I have no information other than what I remember. I called them to explain what happened and their sales manager was helpful but you could tell he was lost on what to do. Granted I live in the hustling capital of the world so I should've known better.

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Did you buy it from Catena? A couple of banks will not lend on their cars, I got crushed on a Mercedes by them. Dishonest as all get out.

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If you have the original CarFax report (when you bought the car) that didn't show the issues, and you paid for the CarFax, I would try using CarFax's guarantee for them to buy your car. At a minimum, it will be interesting to see what CarFax has to say, but it's worth a shot to see if they cover it.

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You know, I've never actually heard of anyone using this so I wonder how it would work out. I bought an M3 once that was crashed at the track, slid into a wall. Owner fully disclosed this to me and had pictures and receipts but had he not I would have never known.

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Wonder how that works, Im looking at track insurance and don't really know if it replaces or supplements the regular coverage you'd have.

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it is track coverage so u dont have to fight and loose against your street coverage or commit insurance fraud by claiming u didnt wreck on a track.

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Perfect. It was in their "for sale" ad. The car has been great and now that I'm at the end of the DPF system warranty... I can gut it and have a trouble free diesel. Wonder if there's a way I can get the sale ad somehow.

No I bought the Cayman from Town Motors Englewood. They, like many dealers, wouldn't/can't reveal much about the previous owner when I bought the vehicle...I tried. They did "magically find" the window sticker and owners manual after some pushing on my part...not much help. My first "uh oh" was when my very competent indy here in MA told me the doors had been resprayed. Actually was a really nice car razor sharp handling nicely optioned...just a little underpowered for me (not an S)