The Cars People Check Aren't the Cars People Sell
We hold two datasets that rarely get compared: 310,383 cars for sale, and 28,797 VINs people typed into a decoder. Lining them up shows which vehicles buyers worry about — and it isn't a straight reflection of what's on the market.
157 Cars for Sale Have No Title at All. They Average $4,459.
Every so often a listing says "lost title" or "bill of sale only" and the price is a third of what the car should fetch. There are 157 of them in our data, and understanding why they're cheap is a short lesson in how car ownership actually works.
Subaru Has the Most Wrecked Cars on the Used Market
I sorted every listing by brand and counted branded titles. Subaru came out on top at 12.4%, ahead of Tesla and Honda. For a marque built on safety adverts that looks like a contradiction — until you look at who buys them and where they live.
People Run the Same VIN 15 Times Before They Buy
I expected one lookup per car. The logs say otherwise: 430,409 checks spread across 28,797 unique VINs. People return to the same seventeen digits over and over, and the shape of that curve is the most honest picture of car buying I've seen in our data.
Airbags Are 11% of All Car Complaints. Check Yours.
Airbags generate 11% of every complaint filed with NHTSA. The models topping the list share one specific reason — and it gets more dangerous with time.
The Most Expensive Cars on the Market Still Belong to a Bank
I sorted every listing by title status expecting salvage at the bottom and clean at the top. Clean wasn't at the top. The priciest cars in the entire dataset are the ones somebody else's bank still has a claim on.
Nebraska Lists 19× More Wrecked Cars Than Virginia
I sorted 310,383 listings by state and counted how many carried a salvage or rebuilt title. Nebraska came out at 13.3%, Virginia at 0.7%. Then I checked what those damaged cars sell for, and that number bothered me more than the first one.
84% of Private Sellers Won't Show You the VIN
I run a free VIN decoder, so I read used-car ads from an odd angle: not "is this a good price," but "can I even check this car before I drive two hours to see it." So I counted all 310,383 of them. Just over half include a VIN. Which half is the whole story.
I Looked at 27,000 VIN Checks. People Check the Wrong Cars.
Everyone assumes a VIN check is for a beaten-up old sedan with a suspicious title. Our own lookup data says the exact opposite — and one model gets checked four times more than anything else.
How to Get the Original Window Sticker by VIN
Every new car left the factory with a sheet of paper taped to its glass listing exactly what it was. Then it got peeled off and thrown away, and three owners later nobody can tell you whether that sunroof came from the factory or from a shop. That's the gap a VIN can close.
Open Recalls: The Free Fix Most Owners Never Claim
A factory recall gets fixed at the dealer for free, at any age, no matter how many owners the car has had. The problem is the letter went to whoever owned it three years ago. We hold 45,128 recall records, and here's how to find out what's open on yours.
The Cars People VIN-Check the Most (26,563 VINs Analyzed)
We give away a VIN decoder, so I get an unusual view of the used-car market: not what people buy, but what they stop and check first. 26,563 unique VINs later, the pattern surprised me. Pickups everywhere, sports cars right behind, and the sedans everyone drives way down the page.