VinAudit Reviews
VinAudit is a vehicle history reporting service that claims to be the most affordable alternative to Carfax and similar services. It was founded in Washington by a former Google employee in 2011, who found it hard to stomach paying $35 for a Carfax report when helping his parents sell their old car. He developed VinAudit in order to change the way vehicle data is made available; it works by removing the middle man from the process of receiving a vehicle history report. It allows consumers to access the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System, as well as many other databases, in effort to make data “public, open, and free” like the majority of the Internet.
REVIEW
As of the current year (2016), VinAudit is indeed the most affordable alternative to Carfax. Rather than paying $35 per report, consumers can pay $5 to see all the information on the title of a vehicle; if a car has ever been labeled as “junk”, “salvage”, or “flood”, consumers can see immediately. They’ll also get access to odometer readings. Dealers can pay only $1 per report, or a monthly fee of $20 for unlimited reports. This price structure has made VinAudit very interesting to many dealers around the country.
However, the title label information, accident records, theft information, sale records, lien records, and the recent odometer readings are all that VinAudit can offer at the moment. They don’t have any sources for service records like Carfax, nor a way to offer the many extras that Carfax has, like information on the car’s history as a rental, or how many times the title has changed hands. While many consumers would be confident buying a car knowing that it has never been totaled and the odometer reading is correct, many others want to know as much as they can before they purchase.
VinAudit does service Canada as well as the United States. Their sources include the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System, the National Insurance Crime Bureau, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, as well as many other government agencies and industry sources.
As with all vehicle history reporting services, VinAudit can’t guarantee that their information is totally complete, because some accidents or service records may not have been reported to the proper channels.
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- Most affordable vehicle history report on the market
- Allows consumers to get right to the source of the information rather than acting as a middle man
- Has bundle deals for car dealerships to make it affordable to offer customers free VinAudit reports
- Services both Canada and the United States
CONCLUSION
For buyers who want to be sure that a title is clean and accurate to the best of their knowledge, VinAudit appears to be a great solution. It’s affordable, and committed to getting you information directly from the best sources possible. While they don’t offer all the same extra information as bigger agencies like Carfax, they still offer plenty to double check a dealer’s story and be sure a car checks out. It’s also extremely easy to use their website and get a report very quickly. While they have less sources than Carfax, the sources they do use are the most trustworthy in general, so the data is as accurate as VinAudit can possibly claim. If you’re buying a car from a dealer that doesn’t offer a free Carfax report, VinAudit is a solid backup choice for those who don’t want to pay Carfax’s high fees.
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