DMV, Carfax and Insurance Co's

....about how long after the title changes on a car does the info take to
migrate over to Carfax? (just curious)

 

It may never. Last fall when I needed to find another car I had madea deal
on what the dealer told me was a nice 1 owner (you know the drill). I
checked it out on Carfax and found it true. I than stumbled across
Autocheck.com and bought a membership there for grins. To my suprise the
same vehicle came out with a string of owners AND an accident reported to WI
DMV. Of course I killed the deal but for kicks I checked my own vehicle
(which I had owned for close to 3 years) and I didn't show up as owner. I
tried this experiment on a few others and it was no fluke. Carfax just plain
doesn't do it.
Larry

 

When I bought my used L series last January, I did a CarFAX on it and only
got that it had been previously owned in New Jersey. By the time that the 30
day subscription lapsed, it had only updated to show that it was owned by
Saturn of Larchmont. My ownership was not visible and I was disappointed in
the quality of the data. It wasn't worth the cost of another subscription to
look into it further.

From what I have seen, an in-state title change goes through in about a
month or so. Out of state titles take several months. I think that it was
almost 3 months for the title for the Saturn to get to me (originally on
lease registered in NJ). Similar timing when I got a car from Massachusetts
and registered it in NY.

 

Thanks to you and Larry for the replies.

I was curious what Carfax said about my SL2 that burned. Nothing came back.
When I read the FAQ's at Carfax they said that the insurance company may
have not applied for a salvage title when they totaled the car. And I'm
thinking the slowness of the paperwork machine may be contributing too.

 

THat's their excuse but they couldn't explain why Autocheck had much more
data and more accurate data. Carfax IMO is a fraudulent company. Just my .02
Larry

 

I tend to agree with you. I tried Carfax originally on the recommendation of
my 27y/o son; also on the strength of Google.com using Carfax (enter your
VIN on google and you get carfax asking for your credit card # to process
your report). I am a big user of Google and generally trust whomever they
partner with. Not this time though.