I want to expand on this a bit. I have been buying cars for twenty years, mostly for new car dealer's used inventories. I look at tens of thousands of cars a year (literally) to buy a couple thousand. Carvana has never seen the cars they buy. It is all done buy computer. On top of that they have lost hundreds of millions of dollars of investor money since they started. They are publicly traded so you can look it up. Carmax does do their homework and looks at the cars, but they will sometimes buy what I consider sub-standard cars. Neither of these companies, plus Vroom, will never have the best price as they will pay more than most dealers to get the unit. if I outbid Carmax it scares me, but sometimes I have to. As for Carfax and Autocheck, don't believe everything you read or see. I don't buy units with a "bad vehicle history report" either, but only due to public perception and being hard to sell. Many times I have seen one or the other agency report an accident and not the other. Data is taken from various sources, and not all report, to compile the report. The accident severity is something that has been added recently but the data comes from the police accident report. These guys are good at their job but they are not body shop experts. Bumper covers damaged or knocked off may look severe to some but it is just relatively minor damage in most cases. Every car that I personally I own is a "story car". I bought my 2012 Taurus road car with 14k on it (unibody damage call) and it has 226k now with no issues. Point being, like most things internet, take them with a grain of salt. Man up and support your local dealer. Most all franchise and a great many independents are good guys trying to make a living, the big corporate stores not so much. Additionally, right now we are experiencing the highest used prices in years and new may even be a better option if you are making payments. If you write a check you can save a bit but the dealer wont like it! Manheim Auctions reported in excess of 500k units in inventory in March and that is down to under 200k nation wide and that number is expected to remain steady or drop over the next few months. Supply and demand, econ 101. YMMV
CR