Looking for a used car, confused by Carfax

[SonOfOC]

Trusting Carfax is like trusting Bernie Maddoff with your money. Carfax is garbage. There are tons of cars that should be salvaged or have major water damage that is never reported. The folks that auction and buy these vehicles know exactly how to keep it from showing.

[newb001]

I have another question on a potential car I found. This particular carfax shows 2 owners, but I can't tell if it's really due to a correction. Also, should I be concerned about a Fleet and or corporate? Maybe fleet not so good as that could be a car rental? This one shows a corporate lease, but does have some service history, so at least they seemed to be maintaining it. You can see below that it was originally a corporate vehicle, then there was a correction, then later it was a lease and then sold at auction. I didn't paste in the oil changes.

Thanks for any thoughts on this one.



Owner 1
Purchased: 2014
Type: Corporate
Where: Illinois
Est. length owned: 12/29/14 - 7/1/16 (1 yr. 6 mo.)

12/29/2014 Illinois
Motor Vehicle Dept. Vehicle purchase reported
Titled or registered as
corporate vehicle

01/26/2016 Illinois
Motor Vehicle Dept.
Saint Charles, IL Registration issued or renewed
Correction to record

Owner 2
Purchased: 2016
Type: Lease
Where: Illinois
Est. length owned: 7/1/16 - 8/8/16 (1 month)

07/01/2016 36,236 Illinois
Motor Vehicle Dept.
Chicago, IL
Title #161836280220 Title issued or updated
New owner reported
Loan or lien reported
Titled or registered as lease vehicle
Vehicle color noted as Gray

08/08/2016 Auto Auction
Illinois Vehicle sold at auction

[WillSports3]

Fleet and Corporate vehicles are typically much much worse than leased vehicles. At least a personal leased vehicle has to be returned and the person has to answer for certain things versus Fleet vehicles. Fleet vehicles will go through things that a regular owned or leased vehicle never will like idling for major periods of time every day, oil changes done whenever they feel like it. Depends on the company that had it as a Fleet car as well. A corporate Fleet car could've just been a vehicle that a company gives to their top tier executives. Or it could've been used by a leasing company or even some tow truck companies who maintain cars like that. It's better to stay away from a Fleet vehicle frankly. I know this because my place of employment has a fleet of about 30 vehicles and the nicest vehicle is a Chevrolet Tahoe that I wouldn't pay 5 grand for because the people who drive don't care about babying the truck or being careful so everything is driven to the ground.

[newb001]

Hi again. I found another potential vehicle, but my concern is that it's being sold by a 'generic' used car dealer. It's not CPO from Buick and it's not even CarMax 'guaranteed'. It's a 2014 with only 15k miles, so even if they hadn't been maintaining it they probably only missed 1 major service/oil change (if Buick's go 10k between oil changes, maybe it's less). CarFax shows no service records, only emissions inspections, but is otherwise clean as far as one owner and personal lease.

They get decent reviews online (the same/slightly better than one might expect from a car dealer, probably better than I'd expect from an independent used car place).

Thoughts?

[ScottB]

The used car game is just that ... could be someone's nightmare or simply time for an upgrade. You need to visit and see the unit. Check under the hood for dirt and damage, do things look right for its age. Are the bolts correct and painted. Look in glove compartment and see if any receipts or previous owners name is there. See if you are allowed to take a mechanic. There are now services that do a formal inspection for the buyer before purchase. Never 100% certain, but some steps to help a bit.