Philadelphia Business Daily

How reliable is the ownership report of a used car on Carfax and AutoCheck?

I am wondering how reliable is the ownership history provided by Carfax and AutoCheck. I just checked Carfax and AutoCheck for the ownership history of a used car and found that there was no information on the number of owners on Carfax, but AutoCheck revealed three previous owners of the used car. Why is it so? Can somebody give me some of the possible reasons? Thank you so much!

Public Comments

1. Autocheck and Carfax both clearly state that they should not be used as 100% proof of vehicle history, because they can only update what has been reported to them. Everyone likes to swear by Carfax, but it's really pretty useless info most of the time. For example, any repairs that you do to a car, but insurance isn't involved.....is not on Carfax. I could have a car that breaks down every week, but it won't be on that history. It could have flood and fire damage, but Carfax is clean, so you think it's a great purchase.
2. Good question - you would have to find out from each company as to why that is....supposedly whenever a vehicle is registered at the DMV, it would show up on either report