Gone are the days of scribbling down a VIN at a used car lot to run an accident history report, only to get home and discover you transposed a digit. Several apps -- and even a text message service -- help car buyers find out if their new ride has been wrecked and rebuilt.
MobilTrac -- a competitor to the almighty Carfax and Autocheck -- offers vehicle accident reports via text message for $1.99 per car. While it might sound like a throwback to the days before smartphones, it's actually quite useful for carbuyers who are already on the lot.
InstaVin lets you text any vehicle identification number to 46782 ("Insta" on phones that still have letters on the keypad) and find out whether that "creampuff" has been wrapped around a tree. It's easy to surreptitiously text from the showroom while the salesman is "checking with the manager" and its cheaper than competing services.
Instavin is offering a free trial this month, so we tried it on a few cars in the Autopia driveway. Turns out a car we've owned since 2003 has never been in an accident. Good thing, too, because we can't recall causing one.
An iPhone app called VIN Hunter has been around for about a year. As far as accident history reports are concerned it's just a gateway to Carfax. It does, however, download a VIN decoder tool that can tell you about your car without even going online.
Far from a randomly generated sequence of numbers, a VIN not only identifies a car but describes it. It'll tell you what kind of engine and drivetrain a car has and often tells you about safety equipment and paint codes. VIN Hunter has access to all that data and let us know that the black car in our driveway used to be red. Luckily, the previous owner also told us about the color change.
VIN Hunter also saves and categorizes cars by VIN and photos so you don't have to rely on memory to recall which of the 28 beige Toyota Corollas your kid test drove was the one-owner low-mileage creampuff and which was the once rebuilt after an electrical fire.
If you're a professional dealer and want to make sure your wares are worthy, fancier services are available. Used car dealers often attend several auctions a week, choosing from among thousands of cars without so much as a test drive.
Apps from Giggle Pop and Laser Appraiser help dealers scan the barcodes of unlimited VINs and offer instant feedback about the car's history. Thought they're not cheap -- costing up to $15 per day -- the apps can save professional car buyers thousands of dollars by making sure they're not stuck with a lemon on the lot.
Which could become the lemon in your driveway.
*Photo: *Flickr/dno1967
