DealersEdge Professional Forums

I just found out that CARFAX has approached our dealership about obtaining our vehicle history. No customer information but all other repair / sales information.

In exchange for this information the dealership would receive "free" advertising. This advertising would be in the form of a website link placed next to the history line if one appeared on a given vehicle.

A few months ago I seem to remember General Motors was trying to start a program where GM actually paid for this information. We chose not to sell it at that time. Now it would be extremely easy for your Sales Manager or anyone else to simply give it away without your knowledge.

You may want to check into this.

We were able to get the program stopped - for now.

Supposedly, and I use that term loosely, our friends at the Federal Government (Uncle Sam) has promised some sort of vehicle title program that would essentially put CARFAX and similar companies at a great disadvantage... same info but free to anyone.

Therefore, CARFAX has to invent another business, such as "our product comes with complete vehicle service history..."

Once the information is collected and tied to a VIN number, who knows how it will be used or abused.

There are dangers for anyone stripping information from your DMS. Don't let it happen.

You may want to ask your factory rep. what happens if CARFAX gets warranty information along with the repair stuff... could be a confidentiality violation.

s

[This message has been edited by sallen1 (edited 03-26-2009).]

FYI
Chief was downloading vins from the Genesis
frame measuring equipment and forwarding it
to car fax. i don't know if they still are.
Every vehicle you mount on that machine and put a vin in the computer, Car fax knows about it.

Hey jdunn:

Is Jim Brown back working for you guys?