Caveat Emptor!! Run that Carfax!!

bmanning wrote:

Fordlover wrote:

catfishmontana wrote:

Fordlover wrote:


It is one tool that is helpful, out of many that should be used when evaluating a used vehicle.

Not if you are paying for the carfax yourself. I personally will not support a business such as carfax. Seems such a waste of money to get hit or miss info to me.

In this case, the Carfax eliminated a vehicle from consideration. You think that was a mistake???

I wouldn't take a Carfax as gospel, but if it says, hey, this vehicle was found at the bottom of lake pontratrain, I wouldn't discredit the data. I personally don't use Carfax, as I have a few years experience in a body shop, and I can typically spot a problem car in the first 5 minutes. But not everybody has the luxury of hands on experience.

And that was my logic; I wasn't going to ignore a document (based upon Motor Vehicle Registration information) that pointed to odometer rollback.

Call me crazy, that's not something you just brush off with a "well maybe the carfax is wrong."

In my mind, evidence that I made the right decision- and evidence that the carfax may have been correct- is that the seller DIDN'T call me back with a "Man, you're crazy and carfax is wrong, the 94k is actually mileage."

I think it's 1 of 2 scenarios:

a) the guy had something to do with the rollback
b) the guy bought it innocently, found out about the rollback himself after the fact, and is trying to sell it

FWIW, FIL is dragging me along to look at another Sequoia tonight; a 2007 with 150k miles, Limited/loaded, moonroof, nav, asking $11900.

Granted it's high-mile but if it's in as good a shape as the pics make it appear, and if they can work on the price a little bit, we may bite on it.

And to the chagrin of many who've contributed to this thread, yes, I'll run a carfax on it :W