It's just another tool that 'might' help you, but it can also confuse and or milead you. I personally think there's more benefit to getting it then not. I used this service for the 1st time several months ago when trying to find a truck for my youngest son. We bought the $25 plan which had unlimited use for 30 days. After looking at dozens of trucks and running dozens of carfax reports, I found a few things on more than one vehicle that were not disclosed by the owner and the carfax reports were valuable to me for this reason. Some vehicles had hardly anything to report while others had a very long list.
In fact, I was ready to make an offer on a super nice looking 2002 Toyota Tacoma. I dove that truck for 20+ miles on freeways, surface streets, parking lots, etc. The truck drove & tracked straight. I spent a good amount of time checking things out until I felt good about it. It definitely needed shocks, but the ball joints and other suspension components seemed to be OK. The trim and moldings were in good shape and the paint was in excellent shape. There were no signs of overspray or masking from a repaint, etc. I made an offer contigent on me running a carfax report and the owner accepted my offer. I called my wife and she ran the report and we found a couple inconsistancies in the odometer readings when the vehicle was in for various services. It's possible the dealership wrote down the wrong mileage, but it happened a couple different times and there were some comments in there that had me concerned. After continuing to question the owner with some new info at hand, his answers became more vague and I felt he was hiding something. Then he mentioned his wife bumped into their garage when trying to park it. He said only the bumper was bent and nothing else and the bumper was replaced and that was it.
Feeling like something was up, I went back to my car and got my trusty paint thickness gauge. Low and behold I found that the truck was repainted (thickness at ~14+ mills in many areas). Then I found areas on the body that were filled (50+ mills), near the front left fender where it flaired out, along the drivers door, and a lot of filler in the extra cab portion on the drivers side. The roof also had filler in some areas as well as one of the top corners. However, all those areas were as smooth as glass and all the contours where work was done was perfect. There was absolutely no visual signs of any imperfections. The body work done appeared to be 1st rate (based on appearance), but the overall paint thickness and the thickness of the filler had be very concerned. After examining the dash and instrument panel very closely, I became even more skeptical that it had been replaced or removed at some point in time.
The truck looked absolutely stunning. It drove strong and shifted well, but I think there was more to the story than the owner was letting on. I also think the instrument cluster was replaced or the odo was rolled back. This truck sold immediately to the next person who looked at it. Maybe it would have been a good truck to get for the price, but I passed on it because things didn't add up the way I liked.
A short while later, we found a super nice low mileage fully optioned Ford Ranger with the 4.0 SOHC engine for a great price and my son loves it.
or in accidents but I think that that is more of an exception than the norm.
