INCOMPLETE REPORTS: THE DARK SIDE OF THE CENTRAL VEHICLE REGISTER
Here’s a translated section I found on Uniqa’s (an insurance company) website:
Since “Vehicle History” uses the CEPiK database, we can only check cars registered in Poland through it. If the car was imported from another country or used abroad for a long time, the application will not return the full history of the vehicle – we will not know, for example, service data. If the car has been marked as stolen abroad, we will not find out about it either. In addition, we will not learn from this database about minor damage and collisions in which the vehicle was involved. This is the case regardless of whether these events were reported by insurance companies as an insurance adjuster or not.
I’M GLAD MY FRIEND MADE THAT CALL
Back to the Skoda Superb.
I offered the owner 7,000 PLN less than what he was asking for. Typically, he returned with a counteroffer – 3,500 PLN less than the asking price. I was ok with that.
Owing to my rusty Polish, I got my friend to call the owner. I wanted to find out the answers to the following points:
- whether the owner still planned to change the oil as he initially promised
- when the current technical inspection was valid until
- why there were two scratches on the car, and whether they were “deep” scratches
My friend got back to me and explained that the car once had a “bump” on the left side of the car.
Indeed. Alarming bells started to ring.
What is a “bump”? Was it just on one of the doors? Did another car smash into the left side of the car?
AUTOBAZA – IT COULD BE YOUR SAVING GRACE
Somewhat gullibly, I decided to investigate the “bump” further instead of giving up on the Skoda altogether.
A quick google search led me to autobaza.
The first thing I did was to type in the Skoda’s VIN:
That’s a good article, thank you for your research! I’d like to add some notes to this from my own experience. Governmental historiapojazdu.pl is a useful website, however since it’s free, it provides only the basic information about a car. Carfax doesn’t really work well with European cars because it’s main market is USA and it doesn’t have all the records made in Europe. Therefore, I fully get why Carvertical is that popular in Poland – as far as I know it’s an European company so it has all the local records.
Thanks Jakub for your input.