Carfax?

[Mike Arman]

>Mholme3 at aol.com
>Subject: Re: Carfax?
>To: quattro at audifans.com
>Message-ID: <390A6EE0.7CCC5281.0018A1C9 at aol.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>Ok, I don't usually rant but...I can't understand why people contemplating 
>the purchase of a vehicle are asking for a free carfax report? If you are 
>seriously interested in a car, I think 20 dollars is money well spent for 
>the piece of mind knowing that the car has no serious issues. And even 
>then, if the carfax turns up clean, are you gonna be too cheap to get the 
>car up on a lift to find out what the REAL problems are? Just doesn't make 
>any sense to me. But maybe it's just me..



Problem here is not that we are cheap, the problem is that frequently we 
have to look at five, ten, or even more cars before we find one with a 
clean history. Now we're talking not $20, but several hundred dollars.

As we all know, EVERY used car, excuse me, pre-owned car, was owned by 
someone who kept it in a temperature and humidity controlled museum case 
and drove it around only on holidays that fell on alternate Sundays just to 
keep the odometer limbered up - looks like new, runs like new, smells like 
new, and my favorite used car seller's "enticement" is "Won't Last!" (No 
kidding - it will often be lucky to make it to the curb . . . )

Reconditioning used cars is a BIG business - the better it looks, the more 
the dealers can ask for them. Consequently, there are more than a few cars 
floating around out there which really should have been parted out long, 
long ago. Examples - I looked at a 5KQT showing 130,000 miles - Carfax 
showed 208,000 miles. My next door neighbor bought a one-year old Chrysler 
Intrepid from the local new-car dealer - it had been a flood car, nothing 
EVER worked right, and they finally took the car back at lawyer-point. 
Buying a used car is like kissing toads - you have to kiss a LOT of toads 
before you find the magic prince (or princess). Anything that speeds the 
process is a good thing, and keeps you from getting warts on your face (or 
with cars, in your wallet).

You cannot know exactly what you are getting unless you have an audit 
trail, and obviously anyone who believes a used-car salesman deserves 
everything he gets.

Here's another problem with expensive cars (like Audi and M-B) - since a 
later model "nice one" can be sold for lots of money, there is great 
incentive to take late model wrecks and rebuild them. Prices at salvage 
sales can be absurdly low, so there IS a strong temptation to buy a wreck 
(which had to be a total to get to the salvage sale in the first place) and 
fix it using parts of "uncertain" origins, and then "washing" the title 
through states that have lax title procedures - and bingo, all of a sudden 
you have a nice, clean, late model expensive car with no defects that are 
obvious to the un-trained eye (and most eyes are un-trained in this) which 
can be sold for a HUGE profit - and someone just got hosed big time, they 
bought a patched-together wreck for TOP dollar . . . and often poorly 
patched together, too.

As long as there are car salesmen, as long as there are car dealers, and as 
long as there are people who prefer not to pay 100% of full list price (and 
car dealers refer to the people who will pay sticker price as "lay downs" 
as in "lay 'em down and **** 'em!), there will always be a need for Carfax.

I think I ought to buy stock in the company - I don't see the car business 
changing it's spots any time soon.

Best Regards,

Mike Arman