blueclaws
New Member
Club Civic Community,
I am a new member to the CC community and to Civic ownership. Having used this site quite a bit already to resolve some technical issue with my '99 EX, I thought I would give back to the community and try to save you some of the pain I went through in buying a used car. It's a long story because I go into detail, but worth it if you want to avoid getting screwed in the used car market. So here goes:
I was in the market for a 6th generation Civic EX. Monitoring Cars.com, Autotrader, and CraigsList (CL is by far the worst and most circus-like place to find a decent car), I made the decision to only look into cars which had a readily accessible CarFax report linked online. Although this eliminated about 80% of the cars listed on Cars.com and Autotrader, I didn't want to go through the hassle, time, and money of visiting the car and risking them not giving me the Carfax upon demand. Cars.com and Autotrader allow you to save custom searches, which streamlined my research on a day-to-day basis.
***As a side note: "a clean Carfax" does not mean anything. I've seen people use that phrase to include cars that have been through accidents, but don't have title problems, so look into the actual report before taking their "clean" to mean your "clean".***
Anyway, I also looked into local eBay listing and found one ad for an EX that was on their Classified section which I liked. eBay offers sellers and buyers a free Autocheck report for the listing. Here is where things got interesting. My research on the web had shown that Autocheck was comparable to Carfax, yet priced a bit cheaper than Carfax. The Autocheck gave it an above-average score of 81 as compared to similar vehicles, and listed about 13 events that were registration or title renewals over the life of the car. I visited the car and got it looked at by a mechanic. The mechanic revealed a rear-end collision, front-left collision, and an oil leak of concern.
Although the accidents were disconcerting to find out about through the mechanic and not the seller, I still liked the car and negotiated the price down enough to buy it. I put down a check deposit and expected to take delivery and pay in full the next day. I still had a fishy feeling about the car after the mechanic found those things, and decided to purchase a Carfax on it the morning of delivery.
The Carfax showed the full story that I hadn't seen on the Autocheck and that the mechanic partially revealed. The Carfax report listed 32 entries, including the fact that (1) it was a company car at first, (2) it had odometer rollback issues, (3) it was in three accidents, including the rear and left-front that the mechanic found, but also an accident on the right-front that he didn't find. Aside from these bruises, the Carfax also showed maintenance and service records that the Autocheck didn't list at all. . Convinced that the seller used Autocheck's poor reporting to his advantage, I canceled the deposit check and told him I wasn't taking delivery or purchase of the car.
The takeaway is that Carfax is the gold standard for a reason, and any serious used car shopper should not accept an Autocheck report from the seller.
I hope this story helps! PM me or reply to this with any followup questions you might have about this episode.
-Peter
I am a new member to the CC community and to Civic ownership. Having used this site quite a bit already to resolve some technical issue with my '99 EX, I thought I would give back to the community and try to save you some of the pain I went through in buying a used car. It's a long story because I go into detail, but worth it if you want to avoid getting screwed in the used car market. So here goes:
I was in the market for a 6th generation Civic EX. Monitoring Cars.com, Autotrader, and CraigsList (CL is by far the worst and most circus-like place to find a decent car), I made the decision to only look into cars which had a readily accessible CarFax report linked online. Although this eliminated about 80% of the cars listed on Cars.com and Autotrader, I didn't want to go through the hassle, time, and money of visiting the car and risking them not giving me the Carfax upon demand. Cars.com and Autotrader allow you to save custom searches, which streamlined my research on a day-to-day basis.
***As a side note: "a clean Carfax" does not mean anything. I've seen people use that phrase to include cars that have been through accidents, but don't have title problems, so look into the actual report before taking their "clean" to mean your "clean".***
Anyway, I also looked into local eBay listing and found one ad for an EX that was on their Classified section which I liked. eBay offers sellers and buyers a free Autocheck report for the listing. Here is where things got interesting. My research on the web had shown that Autocheck was comparable to Carfax, yet priced a bit cheaper than Carfax. The Autocheck gave it an above-average score of 81 as compared to similar vehicles, and listed about 13 events that were registration or title renewals over the life of the car. I visited the car and got it looked at by a mechanic. The mechanic revealed a rear-end collision, front-left collision, and an oil leak of concern.
Although the accidents were disconcerting to find out about through the mechanic and not the seller, I still liked the car and negotiated the price down enough to buy it. I put down a check deposit and expected to take delivery and pay in full the next day. I still had a fishy feeling about the car after the mechanic found those things, and decided to purchase a Carfax on it the morning of delivery.
The Carfax showed the full story that I hadn't seen on the Autocheck and that the mechanic partially revealed. The Carfax report listed 32 entries, including the fact that (1) it was a company car at first, (2) it had odometer rollback issues, (3) it was in three accidents, including the rear and left-front that the mechanic found, but also an accident on the right-front that he didn't find. Aside from these bruises, the Carfax also showed maintenance and service records that the Autocheck didn't list at all. . Convinced that the seller used Autocheck's poor reporting to his advantage, I canceled the deposit check and told him I wasn't taking delivery or purchase of the car.
The takeaway is that Carfax is the gold standard for a reason, and any serious used car shopper should not accept an Autocheck report from the seller.
I hope this story helps! PM me or reply to this with any followup questions you might have about this episode.
-Peter