Shifty
Being in the Automotive industry as i am , i am very familiar with the short comings of CarFax.

If the car is out of the warrenty period , i would not rely on CarFax for mileage information, Not all Insurance compaines update to carfax,Not all Accidents are reported to the police either, its only in the range of 80%. For that matter not all dealerships do any reporting to CarFax, it is not required by law, they are after all an outside agency.
Best way to determain if the mileage is close to correct is to veiw as much of the car as you can. If its a Sports Car with out a Mileage storing computer you need to look at the seller and look at things like the gas and brake pedals to check for the amount of wear. It is the little things that are a tell tale sign of true mileage. When buying an engine off the internet dont think the Vin from the Car that the engine you get is correct either.....
Quote from the CarFax website
"While we'll never know everything about a particular car, a CARFAX Vehicle History Report combined with a test drive and an inspection by a qualified mechanic is a consumer's best protection when buying a used car. "

 

Very, very many shortcomings. Just sharing personal experience with all of the cars (~10 vehicles now) I've purchased in the past 3 years, and the 7-8 dozen I ran a Carfax on while looking for those ~10 cars.

I completely grasp what you're saying - I want you to understand I'm not arguing with you. I'm just saying - it sounds like you're playing down the value of Carfax, and saying "you'd be lucky" to get anywhere near accurate mileage from Carfax. While this might be true in some cases, I think the number of cases where you'll find nearly the correct mileage greatly outnumber those where you won't. Almost every single car I looked up and went to see in person has had a Carfax mileage logged within 6-10k miles of what the actual mileage was, which, in my case, is important. I want to know if I have a 20k, 40k, 60k or 100k+ drivetrain, myself. That's close enough for me.

Don't forget - Carfax also gets updates on your mileage every time you renew your tag in some states, swap a tag, do anything with your tag which requires DOT to request your mileage - so, around here, a lot of times, you'll see at least one hit per year with mileage on it. I even saw name transfers showing up on reports.

It's been a couple of years since I've lived in FL (Gainesville, Orlando, Jax, etc over a period of 15-16 years?), and Carfax wasn't widely used back then....so I can't say what reports look like down there....but they're pretty indicative up here. I will tell you this - I miss paying $25-35 to renew my tag in FL, versus the stupid Ad Veloreum (sp?) tax we pay up here - roughly 1% of my car's total value - so, $30k car, I'm paying $300/year in tax to re-register. Lame!

 

Florida is not one of the states that requires mileage to renew tags.
My statement is , dont Think of CarFax as the bible.
If its a local car Visit the local dealership and ask for the service record, some will give it some wont but its a starting point. If its to good to be true it usually is.

 

Thanks for clarifying, I honestly couldn't remember. I typically renew by mail either way, but there were a few times I actually stopped in to tag agency in FL and paid for it. My long term memory is *** anymore, so I can't remember much from 5-6 years ago and beyond.

Well, all I can add to this is:

I am in this dilemma and watching this thread so hard because I had a really sketchy purchase through Charlie "Chuck" Jones, aka LS1Tech member 'm1a2drvr'. I asked him several times after buying my drivetrain from him to provide a title for the engine as promised in my eBay auction. After at least a half dozen attempts, I finally gave up. He also charged me a fee for paying through Paypal (3%, which is a violation of eBay policy), but offered no other form of payment and no refund for the charges. Then, when trying to get a refund on part of the shipping after the delivery truck arrived with the engine and had no working liftgate to drop the engine off, it was damned near impossible to get the refund.

Chances are I'll never know how many miles were on my engine (ebay item #7991106819). All of his auctions use the same set of pictures. It's not even clear if I got the pictured engine (which looked a lot cleaner than the one I rec'd). Kinda sucks. I have at least 35 emails I sent to the guy throughout the entire ordeal, still no proof of VIN. Could easily match the partial VIN on my block to a title, but he's got it and I got so sick of trying that I'd rather just forewarn anyone making big purchases from him outside of LS1Tech.

 

i tried to pull up your auction info , but it wont.
What did you buy and how much did you pay?
90% of these guys on ebay are scammers and sell nothing but JUNK.
Have you installed the engine yet?

 

Shifty, pop up in his thread and ask for the info he said he would give, if it was me i would do it in all of his F/S threads
https://ls1tech.com/forums/search.php?searchid=4386948

 

Hey KHS,

Thanks for the interest. Here's why I'm wanting to know about this mileage stuff and how to find it out, along with the OP of this thread.

The engine is installed and literally getting the fuel lines run and fixing one of the fuel pump fittings fixed is all that stands between me and firing it up, assuming he didn't sell me a hunk of garbage (my fiance has four lawyers in her family, all practicing law in south FL and central FL, so for his sake, I hope the thing wasn't actually DOA )

Long story short, I bought an LS1+T56 w/all peripherals except the hydraulic actuator, his eBay auction claimed it was out of a wrecked '01 WS6 with 47k miles, but had a misleading odometer picture reading around 30k. Not sure. Looked like a 60k engine when I got it. Paid around $4500 for the whole lot.

Here are pictures of the auction taken from eBay screenshots:

http://www.satellitehead.com/pics/ls1_ebay1.jpg
http://www.satellitehead.com/pics/ls1_ebay2.jpg
http://www.satellitehead.com/pics/ls1_ebay3.jpg

Here are the actual pictures from the auction I found on several of his auctions after I bought my drivetrain - this looks similar to what I bought, but it is much nicer/newer than mine, and some parts shown here are different from what I rec'd:

http://www.satellitehead.com/pics/c6_1_b.jpg
http://www.satellitehead.com/pics/ca_1_b.jpg
http://www.satellitehead.com/pics/d2_1_b.jpg
http://www.satellitehead.com/pics/fa_1_b.jpg

I'm not one to chase people around forums, the guy had his chance to clear things up when I emailed him, and I was nice enough not to leave bad feedback over something so petty. Until he comes clean with a title that matches my partial VIN, I will just continue to promote what he's done at this forum and several others he participates on in the various buildup threads I'm writing...let everyone know the guy sold me short and here, almost a year later, I'm trying to figure out how many actual miles are on the car. It's just going to lead to people not doing business with him.

He seemed like a down to earth guy from the getgo, but once some issues came up, the guy got flaky on me.

EDIT: I just noticed when re-reading the auction that it says 47k miles on it. The engine could actually have roughly that, but here's the screwed up part: The picture you see in that auction actually showed an odometer reading around 33k. Also, auction has conflicting info - says it's out of an '02 at the top and an '01 in the body. The whole sale was really shady, and in retrospect, I should have bought here at LS1tech and avoided this "spacecoastmotorworks" aka "m1a2drvr" aka "space coast motor works" aka charlie jones / chuck jones. Either way - I paid $1k more than I should have for this drivetrain, and I'm sure he knows he got the better end of the deal. I'm sure he was happy to take my money.

 

did it have oil in it when it was shipped to you , if you havent changed it send out a sample. if you have changed the oil already (which i am sure you have) after you put a couple of hundred miles on it have it sent out , you should get an idea of the life it lead from what you get back... even if it was a 30k engine if it was run hard the oil will read like a 60k engine or worse.

 

It had oil. One of the dudes that is renting from me kicked over the 5gal bucket I keep my oil in until recycling it, wound up all over my driveway. I've since cleaned up the Exxon-Valdez on my back driveway (on an incline, so it went a long way). That one ain't gonna be possible

The tranny fluid looked good. That's my only consolation.