How can I look up a used car by VIN?

CarMax charges $19.99 for a vehicle history. If you are buying a car though Carmax, they give you a free report, but if you are just looking for the history of a specific car, you have to pay.

Thanks

What kind of information is in such a report?

If there is a car repair history (for cars repaired at a dealership), any collision history (from insurance companies), previous owners.

But they are not fool proof, if something was fixed but not reported for insurance, there may not be a history. I had a car for 19 years, there was no record of the rebuilt transmission or of the bumper collision.

I typed “How can I look up a used car by VIN” into Bing search and a lot of links came up. I would bet you could find a way to look it up without being charged. dmv.org, kbb.com, and https://driving-tests.org/vin-decoder/ looks especially good. I didn’t go to each site and research them, so they may have a charge.

Thank you, both.

You can also use the website www.vehiclehistory.com for looking up basic information. This website is completely free!