Monday, August 29, 2016
Actual true honest to goodness FREE Carfax report for any VIN
Actual true honest to goodness FREE Carfax report for any VIN
Okay, youre trying to buy a vehicle and you want to know the vehicle history, right? Everyone online says "use Carfax", which is good advice since they have the largest database of vehicle records and their site is clean and easy to use. Many good, honest dealerships have a Carfax account and publish their car info for free so check that option first. But, lets say youre looking at a car on Craigslist and it only has a VIN number and no mileage or service history. If you go to carfax.com and paste the VIN from the Craigslist ad, the site says something like "Yay, we found the vehicle in our database and it contains lots of awesome information and detailed goodies, but... you need to pay us $40 first."
Lame.
So youre wondering to yourself, "Can I get at least some of that info for free (legally)". Well, you can. And its pretty simple. Instead of going to their main homepage, browse to http://www.mycarfax.com/ Youll see a big "Free! Sign Up" area on the homepage. Use a temporary email and create a random one-time password to create your account. Once logged in, it will ask you to set up your "garage". Instead of putting the VIN numbers of the cars in your actual garage at home, put in the VIN of the vehicle youre interested in buying. It will ask you a few questions about the vehicle (like year, make, and model which you get from the Craigslist ad) ...and Presto! a basic report of the vehicle with mileage, service records, and maintenance history. You still dont get accident reports or all the data in the $40 report but it may help some of you out there...
P.S. If you still need a complete report, you might try one of the services recommended by the National Vehicle Services government agency.
Available link for download
