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I have used both and the information provided is similar. Autocheck is the better deal (less money). Both of these reports provide only publically available information on a vehicle by VIN. For example, if a car was in afender bender that was never reports to the police or by the body shop that did the work it won't show up on the report. Just for giggles I ran a report on the '98 Volvo that I'm the original owner of. Since I do all of my own preventive maintenance and the car has never been in an accident there was a grand total of three lines of info on the report including the date it was originally titled and registered and the car has 81K miles over 12 years. If I decided to sell that car and a potential buyer ran the report it would probably look kind of 'fishy'.
Another example is my '02 9-3 SE, I purchased this car used back in '07 from the original owner. When I ran the Carfax report it indicated that the seller was the 2nd owner. Turns out his former girlfriend bought the car new and he took care of all the scheduled maintenance. When the relationship ended he bought her out of the car and registered it in his name. In reality I'd consider him the 'original owner'. I bought the car for my oldest son who registered it in Virginia. This past summer he decided to buy a new car and I took the 9-3 over from him and registered it in NH. So if you run a Carfax on this vehicle it would show four previous owners when in effect it's only been two (i.e. owned by two 'families').
Bottom line is that either service is really only useful for providing a heads up on accidents and salvage titles. Caveat Emptor is always in effect when buying a used vehicle.
posted by 76.24.60...
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