Many cars that are in serious wrecks are never declared as salvage or transferred to an insurance company. In these cases, the best way to uncover the wreck history is for an expert to examine the car. When you have a car checked for defects, ask the expert to also look for any indication of a prior accident, such as paint overspray or remanufactured parts. Undisclosed adverse use A car's title history may also provide other useful pieces of information. It will indicate how many prior owners a car has had, and will often indicate the nature of those prior owners, which in turn can lead to clues about a car's unusual prior use.
Examples are cars used as rentals, fleet leases, taxis and police cars.
Some states expressly require disclosure of such use and the failure to do so is deceptive, as is any dealer representation about a vehicle that is contrary to its actual history. Two of the most popular websites that provide this service are Carfax and info4cars, both of which provide vehicle history reports. These services have huge databases of information obtained from sources like motor vehicle departments, insurance companies, auto auctions and body shops. The data retrieved from each of these sites may differ, so it may pay to run searches with both companies. If the shortcut service finds a problem, the complete title history may provide more compelling evidence of the problem, and it will certainly be more admissible in court.