What triggers an "accident" report on CARFAX?

Was it an accident?

I guess what I’m saying here is, CARFAX lists 3 levels of seriousness, and usually a bumper repaint or replacement is deemed ‘minor’ when reported.

If insurance is involved, I believe the shop is much more likely to care about reporting to CARFAX on a fix.
If the body shop who will be doing your fix doesn’t care either way, just ask them first? There is no magical formula for how something gets reported. A shop would need to submit something, so if they don’t, you’re in the clear I suppose.

 

If you’re concerned and it’s a light scratch, can’t you just remove the bumper and take it for repair.

 

I know what you mean about no one else notices but it drives you crazy………I suffer the same condition

 

I think it depends on the shop if you're paying out of pocket. If insurance is involved or a police report is filed then I would expect it to be on Carfax. I had my bumper resprayed on my 430 and I just double checked car fax and it does not show up. I kick myself on my GT3 as back in 2005 someone clipped the plastic bumperette when stopped in traffic and knocked it off and put some scuffs on the piece. I filed a police report because the driver denied doing it, yet I watched him in my rear mirror and the bumpperette was lying next to the car. In retrospect it was a $750 repair and it created a car fax for a minor accident. This was pre-dating most people having digital camera and I lost the pictures of the damage. So I'm sure this will cost me way more than the $750 when I eventually sell the car because it doesn't have a clean car fax. Live and learn. When my wife scratched the front bumper of her Cayenne with only 300 miles, I paid out of pocket because I didn't want the carfax.

 

How does Carfax get their data? I always thought it was from the insurance companies, not from the body shops. Why would a body shop report anything to carfax? Does carfax pay them for that data? How do they get it from insurance companies for that matter? Do they pay the insurance companies?

I've always wondered similarly about how car companies find out that vehicles have been totaled. Is there a law that insurance companies must report a car being totaled to the manufacturer?

 

They get their information from multiple sources. Not just insurance companies and police reports. They have "partners" which report things like maintenance work and body work. I get an email from them at least once a year about maintenance due on my cars that I have previously asked for a Carfax on. I guess you can always ask a "partner" not to report to carfax, if you have a good relationship then they might comply.

 

Pretty sure it is just public records from DMV/police.

Was told insurance companies or car shops can’t report without violating privacy. At least in California…

SV

 

You're probably right. If you make an accident claim, they want a police report. So indirectly.

 

Police do not report to Carfax. DMV does. That's why you always see title and registration activity on every Carfax report. You also commonly see emissions test results because in many (or most) states, testing facilities report to Carfax.

Accident/damage information is reported directly by the body shops and repair facilities. You commonly see entries on Carfax called "vehicle serviced", which happens if you just get an oil change.

So why do some things show up on Carfax and some don't? Because body shops and other repair facilities make a choice whether or not to report to Carfax. Carfax pays them to file reports, so each shop decides for themselves whether to report or not. Some do, some don't.

20 years ago I bought a 1986 911. The Carfax was squeaky clean. I went to a local body shop (Stuttgart Autobody in Denver) with my removed front valance to get a quote on a respray. They put the car's VIN in their computer and the guy across the desk said "oh, this car's been here before." A year and a half earlier, the car had a bad accident and was repaired at their facility on an insurance claim. They printed out an 18-page invoice for a $14,000 repair (car was worth $16k at the time), so the car was an absolute mess. Again, nothing on the Carfax at all. I said "why doesn't the Carfax show anything about this??" His reply - "We don't report to Carfax because our customers don't want accidents showing up on their Carfax."

Since then I have asked every repair and body shop I have contact with whether they report to Carfax or not. More often these days, they do not, because they know that they will lose business from customers who don't want that crap showing up on their car's Carfax report.

I've seen hundreds of Carfaxes over the years but I've never seen an entry by an insurance company. The only entries I've ever seen are for service work, accidents, emissions, and DMV title/registration with or without mileage discrepancies. That's it.

 

One other note - if you just need a body part resprayed, like a bumper or a hood, remove the part and bring it to the body shop, and make sure the VIN isn't stamped on it. Don't give the body shop the VIN. Without it, it's impossible to report it to Carfax because there's no way to identify what car it came off of.

 

look at the article on this subject in latest cavalino magazine.......lots of people involved now in reporting to carfax, and no way of actually verifying the reports....

 

If not already, take pictures of the scratch and document all you can, in case it gets reported. That way you can always back it up with your photos and email when you want to sell.

 

the new carfax is pulling data and reports in from all over.
for example, if you decided that your car would look better if it had a new bigger front spoiler on the front, and you go to pep boys to pick one up, and the guy asks you for the vin number to make sure it will fit on your model car......your car will be reported to carfax as needing a new bumper and therefore likely to have been in an accident......

 

This is true also of lots of dealerships etc. when parts get ordered, that their algorithm deems as a part needed to repair an accident, with a VIN the accident flag will be tripped, even if your body shop doesn't report and you do not go through insurance. Lots of OEM parts distributors will not order a part without a VIN.

 

Worth mentioning carfax gets their info from a variety of sources as mentioned above, but it also heavily depends on the state the cars in as to what gets reported to them and by who.

Personally I think carfax sucks ass and way to many people put credibility in their halfassed and usually error ridden reports over a good old fashioned inspection by a qualified shop.

 

There are people that make a living by purchasing cars with good CarFax reports that have been in accidents using CarFax as a shield to pretend they didn’t know.


Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat

 

The biggest thing that pisses me off about Carfax is that some auctions, especially Manheim, are EXTREMELY liberal about reporting "structural damage" for things as simple as jack marks or bent pinch welds, then they magically pop up after you buy the car. It's happened to me twice and there's nothing you can do about it.

 

I had an Aston Martin Vantage that I was selling. Took it an an independent shop for a full service before listing it for sale. Car had 7k miles. Clean carfax history.

After I listed it a potential buyer contacted me to inquire about the mileage discrepancy and he said carfax reported the car was recently serviced and reported mileage of 97,000 miles. I was shocked. The idiots at the independent shop input the mileage during the service into carfax incorrectly as 97k and not 7k. It took me nine months to un**** this and get the carfax corrected, and the whole time, the car was unsellable.

I hate carfax and will do everything possible to avoid it in the future and I won’t use any shop who reports to carfax.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Yes. I had an accident “pop”up 18 months later on carfax after I bought my FF. They would not provide any documentation or assist and there was no record at the dealer, in the network or at the reputable body shops in the region.


Yup carfax. They have the data and they won’t share.

 

I sold a friend's r8 and he bought it new... Probably had 4-5k maybe less (memory getting foggy as it was a while ago) anyways I pulled his Carfax... It said it was involved in an accident. He swore up and down it never happened. Found out who reported it as an accident... Got a copy of the accident report from the city... My friend was a witness to an accident and stopped to make sure everyone was ok and give a statement... It went in the accident report that he was a witness and the officer wrote down his plate number. As Carfax scans the date it picks up plates and vins in accident reports and then just pukes it on their report.

I was able to contest it with Carfax and they cleaned it up in what I remember was about 3 days. Might have been a week.

Carfax sucks.

Also if you go into a place to get a scratch buffed out and their CRM system.reports to Carfax it can show up as damage reported on your Carfax. Best part is those shops can contact Carfax and say they made a mistake and a repair was not needed nor carried out and they will delete it.

But...

**** Carfax.

If we standardized paint metering we wouldn't need Carfax.

 

My law partner was trading in his BMW and kept getting low offers for his car. He didn't know why until one of the dealers accused him of failing to disclose that the car was in an accident. My partner informed him that he bought the car new and it was never in an accident. He asked for more information from the dealer and was given a date of accident. It turns out that on that date he had a flat tire and called BMW. They sent out a wrecker to flat tow the car to the shop to repair or replace the punctured tire. The Carfax report identified this incident as an accident. The dealer claimed they don't report to carfax and blamed the wrecker company they sent. However, the local dealer was part of a large conglomerate of car dealers who at the time used one of the large shop management software programs which partnered with carfax. Some of the carfax affiliated shop management software companies are found at the bottom of the page at https://www.carfaxserviceshops.com The tow company could also have partnered with the carfax collective.

 

So what did your partner do? Was he able to get this corrected by CarFax?