How to Buy a Used Car: 12-Step Inspection Checklist
The difference between a great used-car purchase and an expensive mistake is process. Skip steps and you inherit someone else's problem. Follow this 12-step checklist on every car you seriously consider, and the bad ones drop out before you waste a Saturday on a test drive.
Pricing
Free: VIN decoding and NHTSA safety recall lookups, unlimited, no signup and no credit card. Paid: a full vehicle history report is $9.99 for one VIN, $14.99 for a 3-report pack and $24.99 for a 10-report pack. One-time payment, no subscription and no auto-renewal.
Data sources
- NHTSA vPIC VIN decoding API
- NHTSA safety recall database
- NHTSA complaints database
- NMVTIS (U.S. DOJ) title-brand records
CleanVins is not affiliated with Carfax, AutoCheck, NHTSA or NMVTIS.