Looking to buy a s2000... i am a little nervous about it... car fax says "paint colour noted as white" several times thru-out its timeline. BUT the car is red, and the seller swares up and down that it has never been painted. Could carfax be wrong??? he is currently getting me the paint code number off of the door jam so I can call a dealership to see what the orignal colour was. Can I tell by the VIN # ???

 

If it isn't reported then CarFax doesn't have it. My first S had a clean CarFax but when I blew the motor the guy at CarMax showed where damage was done and the car had been repainted. So that person never reported it.

 

Accidents won't show if it isn't reported to the police, and then if the work is not reported by the auto body/repair shop. My 325i was in a front end collision, the owner did the repair work themselves and never reported it. I took it to a body shop to see if it would be worth doing a lot minor body work after I got hit in the driver's door, the guy told me what was done and that it wasn't worth the money involved to fix it properly since it was a 1989 E30.

 

see....you should just be buying my black all original S2000 instead of pissing around with a white/red (one of those colors) S2000...

 

While I was looking for my S a while back I looked at 3 different cars at 3 different dealers all of which had a clean bill of health from car fax... All of which clearly had previous body work and paint done to them. IMO carfax isn't as good as everyone makes them out to be.

 

My roomate from college had three serious accidents in his car while at school ranging from $6000 in damage to $14,000 in damage (I still don't understand why the car wasn't totalled out), but none of them showed up on the carfax. After the third accident I don't think there was a factory part left on the car so it was probablly easy to figure this out, but still carfax had nothing on it.

I use carfax as a guide, if it says no accidents, I do check for myself, if it says there was an accident I walk right away.

 

Yes, Carfax is wrong. Last week, I sold a Mustang I'd had for eight years. During that time, it had an engine fire and collision damage and repair, all of which had been properly documented by police and insurance companies.

The Carfax report came up clean! Of course, I disclosed these issues and repair documentation to the buyer (Who likes getting sued?), but I'd never buy a car based on what Carfax says.

 

Carfax sucks, dont trust it. Have the vehicle inspected by a pro before you make a purchase.

 

carfax is not 100% , it does not hurt to run it, but do not live on it

 

My s2000 is now carbon black, Carfax still says it is silver. It also says it changed owners the last time I renewed my registration??? It is always good to check, but it is by no means 100% accurate.