Having read this thread I'm really curious as to what constitutes a "Carfax" record of accident. I had an '07 BMW 328i that was involved in a reportable incident* that resulted in a nearly 3.5K charge to fix via insurance. Went to trade it at a Ford dealer and was given a value that reasonably comported with the expected KBB "dealer trade". Wanted a bit more $$, so I ultimately sold it back to the original selling BMW dealership - and they flipped it as a CPO! In both cases I disclosed the incident - wonder if it flew below the "radar" of Carfax.



*Car vs collision with a large chunk of semi-truck tread on the freeway. Wasn't able to avoid due to heavy 45mpg gridlocked traffic. No sheet metal or structural damage, just a new bumper cover, light assemblies, stuff at front of engine compartment, front right tire, paint.

 

If no police report then it probably did not get reported to Carfax.

 

No police report filed, but I did complete a narrative as required to the California DMV. That must explain it!

 

My Father-In-Law was rear-ended in his new Cadillac SRX and received a $2500 settlement by using the CarFax depreciation argument, due to frame damage record. In his case a support part for the rear bumper needed replacing. Don't know how they arrived at the figure.

I rarely have seen a dealer pull the CarFax on a trade-in, but my guess, they offer such a low number it doesn't matter.

 

My understanding is that in this market the dealers pull carfax for every vehicle regardless of it being brought in as a trade or at the auctions.

The carfax advertising on TV around here are always on and consumers seem to be acutely aware that these reports are available as a resource.

 

Pretty sure carfax gets its info from insurance company claims.
and once you have the carfax account there no charge for each car, so they should run it. its a flat monthly fee..

it takes about a hour to get a price, but not too painful.


carfax misses a lot too. but if its on there its usually correct.

 

Howardj, I had a similar experience last week. I purchased a 2013 ES to replace my 2005 ES. The '05 was in outstanding condition until two weeks prior when someone scraped down the front quarter panel in a parking lot (no note left of course). Since I was going to replace the vehicle anyway I chose not to repair the minor damage but sell it as is. Before going to the dealership to purchase the 2013 I went to CarMax expecting to receive an offer around 8k. They offered me 9k. Then on to the dealer to test drive the 2013, and while there I asked them what they would give me for the '05. Not surprisingly, they tried to lowball it and offered $6500. When their operations manager overheard me telling them I needed a ride back from CarMax he matched their offer.

 

I do think that having a Lexus to trade on a new Lexus makes a difference as far as the dealer is concerned.

My Altima is a very nice little car. It runs beautifully, looks great, has low mileage, but still has the carfax report hanging over it. I completely understand that it makes the car less desirable to a buyer and should certainly impact the value of the car.

I hope to get to carmax in the next few days and I'll be reporting back.

Thanks again to all for the help.

 

I don't think that Carfax gets info from insurance companies. It would seem that there would be a privacy issue with disclosing that information. I do know that some insurance companies subscribe to Carfax to try to prevent someone from obtaining insurance and immediately filing a claim for a pre-insurance accident.

As for the diminution of value caused by an accident, if you don't like the insurance company's offer you can get statements from car dealers in support of a higher number and negotiate. In Tennessee and a number of other states if you were at fault and it is your insurance company paying, all they have to do is fix your car, not pay for diminution of value. If fault lies with the other driver, then their insurance company has to pay for diminution of value.

As for Lexus offers on trades I was curious about how they pay for all the extra services (dinners for new owners, other events for owners, breakfast or lunch if your car is being serviced, dedicated tech guys to train customers and answer questions, etc). I found out one way they do it is with their lowball offer of $3,500 for our trade (which I sold for $9,700). I am also amazed at the number of people that just walk in and buy at the salesman's first offer.

 

My dealer originally low balled me on my Sonata trade. Since I already had a Black Book value estimate found on their site, I stuck to that amount. It was also $100 more than KBB placed on it. They ended up giving me the Black Book price, plus keeping my already negotiated price on the ES (about 7% below MSRP). I'm not in California, so I was ok with that price.
What I wasn't expecting, was they actually had my old Sonata on their used car lot. I watched them lower the price of it over a month and a half, until it finally disappeared from their inventory. The last price I saw was only $1k more than what they gave me.

 

Massachusetts is a "no fault" insurance state. Until someone had mentioned it here I'd never heard of payment for " diminished value" before. Certainly we're very lucky that we hadn't had an accident or auto insurance claim before this one which was in 2010 for more than 20 years.

Certainly with a difference of $6200 from the price you sold your car for and what you had been offered by a dealer in trade that's enough to cover the bother of selling it yourself and covers what you lost in sales tax.

I don't have that much of a spread on my vehicle. I will be asking my insurance agent about the diminished value business.

Thanks for the ideas.

 

I can now provide updated information about my transaction.

As many suggested I took my car to Carmax. They came up with an offer of 8K. They said that even though I had a great service record on carfax and the car had low mileage and was otherwise clean the accident that was reported on carfax, even though it was minor, definitely makes the car harder to sell than one that hadn't had the accident. they also said that even though the tires and brakes were still good they were the original tires and brakes and they would need to be replaced sooner rather than later. The dealer that I really want to do business just called to sat that the car I had my eye on in the color combination I wanted with all of the equipment that I wanted plus a couple of other items had just arrived. MSRP is $44,048, Invoice is $41,665. I'm paying $32K plus tax,title and fees for exactly the vehicle that i wanted from the dealer I wanted to do business with. I'm more than happy.

Thanks to all that chimed in when I asked the original question. I appreciate it.

 

Wow Howard - congrats on the great deal! Sounds like almost 1700 below invoice plus the 8k for your car. Now that the hard part is out of the way, go enjoy driving that new ES.

Bill G

 

A Carfax hit number varies but if you had airbag deployment,the value of the trade goes down a lot.

 

Great result. Glad things worked out for you.