Carfax

If only I had had a service like Carfax when buying my cars in Europe!

Carfax is an extremely useful and therefore almost essential tool when looking for a used car. For a small fee ($30 for one report, $40 for an unlimited number of reports within a 30-day period), you can find out more-or-less the entire history* of any car. Initial overview reports are completely free of charge.

You simply go to the Carfax Web site, enter the Vehicle Identification Number of the car in question, and you get in-depth information about:

• The vehicle's age;
• The number of owners;
• Where it was driven and sold;
• Its true mileage;
• Its use, whether private or commercial (divided into leasing, fleet or rental);
• All repairs undertaken;
  
• Open manufacturer's recalls for repair;

and most importantly of all

• All reported accidents and - crucially - their severity.

As such, what you end up with is a warts-and-all biography of the car you are considering buying, enabling you to make your purchasing decision based on objective facts rather than a dealer's or owner's patter, and putting you at a huge advantage when negotiating the sale price.

I used Carfax when buying both of our cars here in the States, and because I opted for the unlimited reports option I ran off scores of reports on advertised cars before finally narrowing my search down a few likely suspects. Armed with my Carfax reports and the True Market Value as assessed by edmunds.com, I was able to get excellent deals, even though I was buying from a dealer rather than an individual on both occasions.

Now I just need someone to introduce a similar service for when I return to Europe. Any volunteers?

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* This is not completely true: the information is accurate to the date of the last entry, which could be several months or years back. Though here too, no news is good news.