USA vs. Canadian CarFax trustworthiness?

[plresultsman]

Has anyone done a deep dive on the relative trustworthiness of the Canadian CarFax vs. USA version? I understand that CarFax is just directional - isn't 100% reliable, and they won't stand behind their product if a bad thing happens - but is the Canadian information better, worse or the same as USA information? Thanks if you have any fact-based insights.

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[Cobra Jet]

Good question, but I'm going to go out on a limb and just say that any VIN reporting information (regardless of Company data mining that info) is only as good as the original data reported to that agency. It all starts with a human.

Meaning, there are vehicles where it may have been in an accident, but if a Police report was not filed it won't get logged with a VIN reporting agency - OR if there was a Police report and the responding Dept. didn't properly log the incident into XYZ database, then it's missed getting on the VIN report.

Same is true if an event wasn't logged with or by an Insurance Co, it won't hit any VIN reporting agency.

Is the vehicle you're looking at in Canada, or is it a vehicle originally sold to Canada and brought back to the US for resale?

 

[MAGS1]

I agree with CJ, the Carfax is only as good as the information reported. Maybe more things are reported in Canada (or at least better reported)? If it’s a car originally sold in Canada and brought down here then the dealer should also have the import documentation as well. If it’s still up in Canada and you’re bringing it down, then you’ll have to do that.

 

[plresultsman]

I am watching '18-'20 PP2 vehicles generally, but my question regards those that make their way back to USA, typically via dealer auctions route. I see one now that has a window sticker that with all the right PP2 information, but photos of the car show the front splitters are PP1 ('single chin', not the 'double chin' of PP2), and the wheels are painted black rather than the OEM dark pewter. Odd. Could be post accident result, or owner made changes - which seems unlikely. I'm just trying to understand of reporting requirements/practices are more/less stringent up north vs. here.

 

[MAGS1]

I am watching '18-'20 PP2 vehicles. I see one now that has a window sticker that with all the right information, but the car itself show the front splitters from a PP1 ('single chin', not the 'double chin' of PP2), and the wheels are painted black rather than the OEM dark pewter. Odd. Could be post accident result, or owner made changes - which seems unlikely.

Ford Performance does sell the PP2 wheels in gloss black so the owner could have swapped them out. Is there a picture of the door jam with the OEM wheel & tire sizes? That will tell if you if it’s a PP2 or not

 

[plresultsman]

Ford Performance does sell the PP2 wheels in gloss black so the owner could have swapped them out. Is there a picture of the door jam with the OEM wheel & tire sizes? That will tell if you if it’s a PP2 or not

The window sticker for the car says PP2, and black PP2 wheels are present - but the car only shows a single chin front splitter. My (typically skeptical) intuition says the car was wrecked and fixed, but the shop failed to replace the second front splitter (owner didn't notice oversight), and had to source some of the wheels, so all were replaced in black, or they replaced one or two and painted the rest.

 

[MAGS1]

The window sticker for the car says PP2, and black PP2 wheels are present - but the car only shows a single chin front splitter. My (typically skeptical) intuition says the car was wrecked and fixed, but the shop failed to replace the second front splitter, and had to source wheels, so all were replaced.

Very possible. Or the lower splitter got beat to shit and was removed before being listed for sale and wasn’t replaced. The wheels wouldn’t scare me as much as people change those out all the time to suit their tastes (maybe they just prefer the black over the dark gray). But, the missing lower splitter would be more worrisome as the typical PP2 owner doesn’t remove it just because.

 

[plresultsman]

All of this makes just strengthens the case for buying a single owner car directly from owner, which is where I will be come March, fingers crossed.

 

[Justpassingas]

FWIW back in late 2014 I traded in my wife’s 2014 Scion Tc that had been hit twice on two different occasions and in the body shop both times in the 6 months that we owned it. The dealer put it on the lot and when I checked the Carfax it was clean. No mention of any accidents only the recent oil changes.

 

[plresultsman]

FWIW back in late 2014 I traded in my wife’s 2014 Scion Tc that had been hit twice on two different occasions and in the body shop both times in the 6 months that we owned it. The dealer put it on the lot and when I checked the Carfax it was clean. No mention of any accidents only the recent oil changes.

Yep, just a guide. And CarFax won't back up the CarFax product if you find they missed something, so I've heard - no recourse.

 

[FruityJudy]

Im pretty bitter about Carfax. Ive got a 2015 Dodge Challenger R/T for sale. A deer ran into the passenger door in August. Only a driver, no passenger in car, deer knocked out glass so the air curtain airbag deployed. Now carfax shows it as a moderate crash just because of the airbags deploying. Right now it has the car upside down 11k due to the carfax.

 

[plresultsman]

Im pretty bitter about Carfax. Ive got a 2015 Dodge Challenger R/T for sale. A deer ran into the passenger door in August. Only a driver, no passenger in car, deer knocked out glass so the air curtain airbag deployed. Now carfax shows it as a moderate crash just because of the airbags deploying. Right now it has the car upside down 11k due to the carfax.

Well that sucks. Are you trying to sell personally or to a dealer? If the former, you can convey the story to prospective buyers in your ad copy and back it up with docs. I came across a car several months ago that had a 'minor' accident on CarFax. The car was a special example, with super insane low miles. The dealer said the fellow who traded it is always buying and trading cars with them and has a 20 year track record with the dealership of doing so, takes great care of the cars, babies them, yada yada. I asked them to contact this supposed 'great friend of the dealership' to either let me speak with him, or get a copy of the repair docs/body shop contact info to verify the 'minor' part of the CarFax story. The absolutely refused to even consider it, citing 'privacy policy' - and were complete assholes about it. Seems like it wouldn't have been a big deal. I've had success discretely/appropriately speaking with other previous owners in the past. I moved on of course.

 

[FruityJudy]

Well that sucks. Are you trying to sell personally or to a dealer? If the former, you can convey the story to prospective buyers in your ad copy and back it up with docs. I came across a car several months ago that had a 'minor' accident on CarFax. The car was a special example, with super insane low miles. The dealer said the fellow who traded it is always buying and trading cars with them and has a 20 year track record with the dealership of doing so, takes great care of the cars, babies them, yada yada. I asked them to contact this supposed 'great friend of the dealership' to either let me speak with them, or get ahold of the papers/body shop contact info to verify the 'minor' part of the CarFax story. The absolutely refused to even consider it, citing 'privacy policy' - and were assholes about it. Seems like it wouldn't have been a big deal. I've had success discretely/appropriately speaking with other previous owners in the past. I moved on of course.

Trying to sell privately now as the trade in was what was 11k upside down. Was going to trade in and willing to take a little hit but not that kind of hit

 

[Balr14]

Once a car has an accident reported against it, there's nothing you can do about it, no matter how minor. Even if you show a potential buyer the damage was minor, the car will still have diminished value when the potential customer tries to sell it and they will only have second hand evidence of minor damage that nobody will believe.

I had damage reported on a Lexus because I snagged my sweatshirt on the corner of the bumper cover and pulled it away from the car, breaking two fasteners. Only way to fix it was replace the entire cover, so damage was reported, which cost me about $3000 when I sold it. The new bumper cover and paint cost me $2000, so I wasn't happy.

 

[Nightstalker]

I got a 2020 GT Premium in December after looking on Manheim for a couple months (my wife has an account through her powersports dealership) and it is where car dealerships generally get there used stock from. When we were looking she told me to not even bother with anything coming from Canada because it can be an issue to import because of the title, they use the metric system ang the odometer has to be changed and they can mess with it and change the miles and among other things, there is the issue of the colder weather/snow and what the car has been through. I am attaching a link from edmunds for you to read through.

https://www.edmunds.com/about/press...on-canadian-cars-according-to-edmundscom.html

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