All About Vehicle History Reports

If you are in the market for a used car, you must get a Vehicle History Report AND have the car inspected by a certified mechanic on a lift. Do not buy a used car without these tools to make an educated decision and save yourself from making a huge mistake! You have been warned!

Why You Need a Vehicle History Report?

It gives you a window into the car's past.
According to the US Government roughly a half million cars are sold with fraudulent odometer readings annually, costing used car buyers over a billion dollars. Our research indicates many more go unreported!
The Office of Odometer Fraud Investigations has reported a sharp increase in odometer fraud. Elevated used car prices coupled with a tight supply of low-mileage used cars, has made odometer fraud more profitable than ever.
Natural disasters such as Super Storm Sandy damaged over a quarter million cars! Many of these cars get cleaned up, rebuilt and put back on the market.

What is In a Vehicle History Report?

Vehicle records including data from state DMV's, auto auctions, manufacturers, car dealers, police reported accidents and repair shops. A history report may reveal more about that used car than the seller is willing to tell you. An AutoCheck Report can reveal:

Number of previous owners, when it was sold & what states it was sold in.
Accident data, including total loss, flooded, rebuilt wreck, salvage titles & airbag deployment
Odometer rollback check
Year, model, engine, place of manufacture & standard equipment
Check if the car has been turned in under the "Lemon Law"
Exclusive auction data
Indication if vehicle has been certified used, leased, car rental, fleet or government vehicle

To get a better feel for what is contained in a report, click here to view a sample report. You'll be able to go through all of the sections and see how all of the valuable information is presented.

Why You Need to Purchase Your Own Report?

We have received several emails from CarBuyingTips.com readers where the seller provided a vehicle history report, only to later find out the car had been in an accident! How can this happen? The report could be out-dated, altered or fake. Why would you trust the seller to show you an accurate report? Spend the money and run your own current report. You're about to spend thousands on a car, why take the risk for less than $50 bucks. In fact, recently, a shady car dealer was arrested a few miles away from my house for phony reports and providing them to their customers -- innocent buyers like you.

What Are Your Options?

Autocheck Problem The options fall into two categories. 1) Companies that buy as much data as possible about a vehicle and give you a lot of information that you can use to evaluate the car that you may be considering. 2) The very low cost reports that have data from very limited sources supplied by the Federal Government's National Motor Vehicle Title Information System (NMVTIS). When you use an NMVTIS provider you only get very basic information. Remember the old saying, you get what you pay for? That is especially true when you are talking about this topic. Even though we don't really recommend it, for more information about NMVTIS and how to get a report from the Government database, click here to visit VehicleHistory.gov.

Recommended Provider

If you are going to take our advice and stick with a complete report we recommend AutoCheck because they are the only provider that has a true unlimited plan. CarBuyingTips.com has arranged a special deal for our readers. You can run unlimited reports for 60 days instead of the standard 30 days. You will have plenty of time to take full advantage of your plan and get great value for your money. Reports can be run at your convenience and they have mobile apps for both iPhone and Android so you can run them no matter where you are. You'll be able to run reports while you are out looking at cars. The unlimited package empowers you to be a discerning used car buyer.

If there are no major problems found in the report, you can use the information to help you to determine what the car is worth. Before doing this, you need to get a baseline value from Kelley Blue Book. Once you have the baseline, you can use the data about the car to determine if you should pay more or less than "normal" for that particular vehicle. For more information about this topic, read our advice about how to use a report to haggle a lower price.

No VIN Yet? Click here to get a AutoCheck Report Package and run reports at your convenience.

AutoCheck is a premier used car history report provider and it is a wholly owned subsidiary of Experian (the credit report people). AutoCheck reports feature data from over 34,000 sources and provides the "AutoCheck Score" (in addition to the detailed records) which helps you negotiate a better price and compare vehicles. They don't advertise nearly as much as CARFAX^® but that just means they can pass the savings on to you.

In addition, you can click here to learn more about why we recommend AutoCheck based on the extensive research that we have conducted.

AutoCheck Offers 2 Options:

Single Report - $29.99
Unlimited Plan for $44.99 - Unlimited reports for 60 days exclusively when purchased at CarBuyingTips.com

Buyback Protection Guarantee

AutoCheck has an excellent buyback guarantee. If for some reason a problem title is later found on a vehicle that shows a "Clean Title" in their system, they will buy back the vehicle from you.

Do a VIN Search Before You Buy, Any Car is a Potential Lemon

There are over 2 million wrecks a year. Even certified used cars may have a bad past. Without a used car history report, your chances of buying a wreck are high. I receive emails every day from buyers who have fallen victim. Learn from their mistakes, don't let it happen to you.

Extended warranty companies will not cover a salvaged or rebuilt title
Manufacturer's warranty is voided on a rebuilt or salvaged title
Banks will not finance a salvaged car with a rebuilt title

Some Accidents Won't Appear in a Report
Some municipalities don't supply accident report data and some accidents below $1000 are not reported. Nothing is fool proof. That's why I stress so much that you still need a certified mechanic to look at the car on a lift to find accident damage not reported in the report. These reports are only as accurate as the data they are based on.

Odometer Rollback Myths

Many people wrongly think digital odometers can't be rolled back. With digital odometers, the current mileage reading is stored in a memory chip. A skilled scammer can reprogram it with lower mileage, so you should run an AutoCheck Report on the car to know for sure. A car's mileage is recorded when it's inspected, title changes hands, traded in at a car dealer or turned in after a lease. As you look at a report, the recorded mileage should increase each year. If a mileage event shows less mileage than the last event, this should alert you to potential odometer fraud.

Airbag Fraud Alert

Airbag fraud is widespread and very profitable. When cars are wrecked, insurance companies pay for damages including airbag replacement. Some unscrupulous repair shops take the money without replacing the $800 airbag. Many companies sell fake airbag covers so that you falsely think you have an airbag. Could you be driving around in a car with no airbag? You can't see through the airbag cover. That's why you need to know if the car was wrecked. If the car had previous accidents on its history report, you should be suspicious and have a certified mechanic verify that airbags are properly installed. In some cases, the report can tell you if the airbag was deployed in an accident.

You Need to More Than a Record Check & Record Summary!

Don't just run the free record check and think your job is done. That's just a teaser showing you how many records exist for that car, so run the full vehicle history report to see the car's complete history.

Get Your AutoCheck Reports Now

No VIN Yet? Click here to get a AutoCheck Report Package and run reports at your convenience.