Should I check the VIN before even meeting the seller?

[Nameronio]

I’m going to check out a 2015 Volkswagen Passat that’s listed on a classifieds site. The seller sounds okay, says it’s a clean title, low mileage, one owner. He already gave me the VIN, but I’m not sure whether it makes sense to check it right away or wait until after I see and test drive the car. My thinking is — if I like how the car drives and it looks solid, then I can dig deeper. But a friend told me I might waste my time if something’s already wrong in the history. Curious how you guys usually handle this — check before meeting or after?

[Tartaron]

From experience — always check before you go. I learned this the hard way. A couple years ago I drove across town to check out a Honda Accord that looked great in pictures and was priced fairly. Test drive went fine, but when I later ran a VIN check, it turned out the car had a salvage title from a flood incident. I was furious I wasted time and gas. Since then I check every VIN before I even consider meeting. I use carfaxforsale.com now — it connects to the official CARFAX database but costs way less. It gives all the key info: past accidents, number of owners, title issues, even maintenance records if available. Just last month I ran a report on a used Hyundai Elantra — the seller claimed it had one owner, but the report showed three, plus an open recall. That saved me a lot of hassle. Basically, a VIN check is your filter — do it before anything else.

[Nameronio]

You know what, that totally makes sense now. I just ran the VIN for the Passat and found that it had a front-end collision in 2021. Not even mentioned in the ad. That would've been a waste of time and maybe a bad buy if I didn’t catch it. Thanks for the detailed reply — really helped me avoid a mistake.