how does carfax work??
 

Hey guys, I'm wondering how long it takes for an accident to be reported to carfax? I mean lets say my car was in a wreak today. Takes the insurance and body shop some time and I don't get my car back for 4 weeks. So now it's mid January. Will the carfax show this right away or does it say take 6 months. I'm just trying to find the timeline of when things get reported. Thanks

To put it short, it doesn't work.

How long does it take for a car to show up as in an accident, 0 days to never.


If the person gets it fixed at shady body shop number 1, it won't ever get reported. And I have a friend who drove his G37 for... 3 years maybe (?) to show up as being a total loss vehicle

So were you in a "wreak"? Sounds like you're trying to get the car fixed and sell before it shows up.

Just saying

Yeahhhhhhh... True...



Also... If your insurance was involved, or better yet, if a police officer was called out to the scene, you can almost bet your arse that it's on CarFucks already

Opposite. I'm looking at buying a truck that appears to have fresh paint on the front end like it was in a collision and repaired. Slight gap changes, etc. Nothing that screams repair but makes me question it. Carfax is clean. So was curious how far behind carfax was from real time collisions.

Unless they pulled the body completely apart, it's easy to tell. Look for blending in the fender seams; paint on the edges of emblems, rubber trim; over spray in the fender liners, bumper supports.

yah, if you're planning on selling your car, do it the day you get it back from the bodyshop. chances are, it wont show up on carfax and you get a good trade-in value.

tell them you want to have your mechanic check it, then have a local bodyshop examine it to tell you what was done.

Yeah I plan to go back this weekend in some ratty clothes so that I can get underneath and check things out. I already asked him about taking somewhere to have it looked at but might be more trouble than it's worth. I'll see what it looks like when I can get under it. Thanks everyone

Since 2011 I've had two accidents - my 2011 Maxima SV and my 2011 G37S Coupe.

Maxima was about 4k, G was over 15k. Had them fixed at my regular shop which is State Farm, Mercury and All State Approved and highly reputable.

Out of morbid curiosity I pulled Carfax on each one about 6 months to a year after the accident - and nothing on both.

I will never, ever trust Carfax.

CarFax can be pretty hit or miss, I definitely wouldn't base my sole decision on buying a car just off a CarFax report. Best bet is to look for all the tell tale signs of an accident, like 122554 pointed out.

+1. I haven't seen any reports of false positive from CarFax but there are a LOT of reports of false negatives. Ie, you can probably believe any reported accidents but none reported doesn't mean anything.

When in doubt, get it checked by a pro.