Carfax
 

I see ads now that suggest that Carfax reports are available through a dealer when you are looking into buying a used car. This tells me that Carfax is in collusion with the car companies to help them sell bad cars. Am I wrong?

not necessarily, it's just a sales technique. however...

a clean car fax does NOT mean the car is clean. a good example would be a collision that was not claimed to insurance and a scrupulous repair guy did not report his work.

so, indeed accept a car fax from the dealer, just have a third party check the car out before buying.

yup. just like what bowtieguy have said, you do know there are lots of people who know how to replace a fender or bumper, so many cars that got into a fender bender can be fixed and it wont be on the carfax.

also some shady car owners can roll back the odometer all they want, and carfax cant catch that.

yea carfax works on insurance claims and whatnot but not if someone fixes it themselves

lol odometer roll back is oh so very easy ;) ive done it 4 times now with various speedometers either because my speedometer broke or i got a different instrument cluster

Well, a carfax would catch if the odometer was rolled back beyond the last legal report of odometer.

It's generally a very nice thing to do for a late model car, because if the maintenance was done at the dealer, it usually shows up on the carfax.