why not...they've gotten away with everything else??? They are allowed to severly de-value millions of vehicles without being required to show proof of damages (however large or small). The reason a dealer HAS TO HAVE IT is because CARFAX is spending so much on advertising and playing on what the customer already thinks the dealer is trying to do. I think it's unfair and false advertising to make the public think all dealers are trying to take advantage of them.
-
This thread is just the tip of the iceberg.The people ahead of the curve aren't Googling for answers — they're already in here, having the conversations you haven't found yet. DealerRefresh is free.Get the full picture →
CARFAX - What Are You Thinking?
- Thread starter Jeff Kershner
- Start date
Switched to AutoCheck about 6 months ago and haven't looked back. It's cheaper and the customers have had no complaints. They just want the VHR and don't seem care about the brand name on top
The bottom line is carfax does not gain anything by getting into the pricing and value segment. They have cornered the market on vehicle history reports and should leave bad enough alone. Where could they possibly be getting accurate pricing info anyway? They claim that they "monitor" million of used vehicle transaction & base the " vehicle value impact on these transactions". They must then be scoring every carfax & matching it with individual sales???? Doubt it!!! Even if they were doing that where are they getting the retail sales price info???? The only possible way for them to get ACTUAL exact sales prices would be from AUCTION sales not retail sales. I recently ran a carfax on a one owner 2007 BMW 5 series with no accidents, perfect sevice history and only 5K miles!!! A true rare find....guess what... a -$340 vehicle history impact! WTF??? When I asked the rep to explain, I could not get any explanation. Seems to me that this car would be a no-brainer for a positive number in this "new" evaluation tool. I also checked several other cars while on the site and found many with numbers like $-30 or + $40. With such small numbers why even bother with it? If the carfax impacts the cars value less than $300 is it really even important anyway? In my opinion this is a complete FAIL for Carfax. I hope they get enough heat over to reconsider dumping it completely!
Hey Boss "My customers says our CarFax report told me you need to take another $1440.00 off" your already way to low internet price. Don't they know the pricing tool you used to mark it down is flawed. It can't take into account all the low ball Used Car listings that state price includes a $2000 cash or trade or doesn't include freight or state inspection. What other helpful tools can we spend $$ on that will help us give up gross on our hard to come by Used Vehicle Inventory?? What am I missing here??
Hey Bruce,
I appreciate your concern. I want you to know that vAuto has the technical ability to catch listings on-line that require amounts to be added back to the asking price from cash or trade. This is a practice that we’ve seen plenty of and made the adjustment for quite some time ago. In other words, if a vehicle is listed for $10,000, but in the disclaimer it requires $3,000 cash or trade, we pick it up as a $13,000 asking price. To this extent, you shouldn’t be pricing against invalid competition.
The CarFax price adjustment is a disturbing feature. First, the number they come up with as an adjustment comes from a black box that nobody can understand. Further, it is definitely disruptive to the sales process. I just don’t understand what these guys were thinking when they came up with this idea. It seems like somebody invented the concept that doesn’t understand the dealership business. In any event, I appreciate your concern and please feel free to contact me directly with any further issues or concerns regarding our system.
Thank you.
Dale
I appreciate your concern. I want you to know that vAuto has the technical ability to catch listings on-line that require amounts to be added back to the asking price from cash or trade. This is a practice that we’ve seen plenty of and made the adjustment for quite some time ago. In other words, if a vehicle is listed for $10,000, but in the disclaimer it requires $3,000 cash or trade, we pick it up as a $13,000 asking price. To this extent, you shouldn’t be pricing against invalid competition.
The CarFax price adjustment is a disturbing feature. First, the number they come up with as an adjustment comes from a black box that nobody can understand. Further, it is definitely disruptive to the sales process. I just don’t understand what these guys were thinking when they came up with this idea. It seems like somebody invented the concept that doesn’t understand the dealership business. In any event, I appreciate your concern and please feel free to contact me directly with any further issues or concerns regarding our system.
Thank you.
Dale
- Sep 16, 2009
- 137
- 2
- First Name
- Mitchell
There is no question that CarFax is taking this in the absolute wrong direction. Many dealers post their cars online with a CarFax report (It's required for most CPO programs) I would guess that Dealers are a large part of their revenue. It seems a bit like biting the hand that feeds you. Not a good move!
I just printed out the carfax reports from our site. 41 devalue our vehicles by a total of $3080. 30 increase the values by a total of $2840. Of course, the customer will be much more passionate about the nagative carfax pricing schemes than the positive ones. I'm giving both stacks to my GSM tomorrow. Call me crazy, but I'm seeing autocheck in our near future.
Had a discussion with GM and Used Car Mgr yesterday.... they thought it was for us, that the consumer didn't see that. I showed them that they do. Getting auto_check prices. Only problem is we are Certified Honda, Hyundai and Toyota who require carfax....have to work on this one
Carfax is clearly trying to walk a tight rope between client and consumer and so far they are failing miserably.
This new feature was never discussed with me. I think I would remember a conversation where I'm being told "Hey we've got this new added value feature that tells your customers how much to knock off the price of your cars. It'll be great, you’ll love it!"
Now there is the element where Cars.com and Autotrader have an agreement with Carfax, so the consumer will see this feature there as well. So Autocheck will not solve the problem completely.
In my opinion, we force Carfax to the table and see if we can get this disastrous experiment over with as quickly as possible. Carfax what do you say? Ready to talk?
This new feature was never discussed with me. I think I would remember a conversation where I'm being told "Hey we've got this new added value feature that tells your customers how much to knock off the price of your cars. It'll be great, you’ll love it!"
Now there is the element where Cars.com and Autotrader have an agreement with Carfax, so the consumer will see this feature there as well. So Autocheck will not solve the problem completely.
In my opinion, we force Carfax to the table and see if we can get this disastrous experiment over with as quickly as possible. Carfax what do you say? Ready to talk?
This is one of the responses that I got from Carfax.
"The History Impact figure has been on dealer run CARFAX reports for about 3 months now with pretty good reviews. The consumer version launched this week and this is the first response I’ve had from any of my groups. It’s really no different than the CARFAX expert saying a car is worth $500.00 more because of low mileage, good service, etc. The expert has been on the report for over 2 years telling customers this.
The new version of the History Impact now takes into consideration accidents and other negative indicators so some numbers will/are negative. We’re not telling dealers/consumers what vehicles are worth we’re only letting them know that based on the history of the car it should be worth +/- more or less. If a car has a negative History Impact I would let a consumer know that we took that into consideration when we priced the unit."
In my opinion the explanation does not address the root of the problem.
"The History Impact figure has been on dealer run CARFAX reports for about 3 months now with pretty good reviews. The consumer version launched this week and this is the first response I’ve had from any of my groups. It’s really no different than the CARFAX expert saying a car is worth $500.00 more because of low mileage, good service, etc. The expert has been on the report for over 2 years telling customers this.
The new version of the History Impact now takes into consideration accidents and other negative indicators so some numbers will/are negative. We’re not telling dealers/consumers what vehicles are worth we’re only letting them know that based on the history of the car it should be worth +/- more or less. If a car has a negative History Impact I would let a consumer know that we took that into consideration when we priced the unit."
In my opinion the explanation does not address the root of the problem.
