If you’ve bought a used car recently, you may have taken Clark’s advice and bought a Carfax report. These are background checks on cars that you buy online at carfax.com. It’s basically a title history report, and you get a 30-day pass to run VIN numbers on cars you’re interested in buying. The report tells you if the car has been totaled in an accident and rebuilt, or “salvage titled.” If the car is in the state’s lemon law buy back program, or has received flood damage, hail damage and fire damage, that information is also included. And, there are businesses that buy these “salvage title” cars and sell them to the public as a salvaged car. Most of these businesses are legitimate. But others are not. They will go to states that don’t have good vehicle registration laws and they re-register the car with a clean title. They then sell it to people as if it is new. It’s a process known as “title washing.” In addition, CarFax has a new policy stating that it will buy back a car in the first year if company representatives fail to pick up on any key problems that have happened with cars. It’s a new layer of protection from CarFax, which is great. But it’s not enough. When you buy a used car, you need a checklist of things to do, right? Your first step is to check the April issue of Consumer Reports “Used Car Buying Guide.” This guide tells you which cars you should avoid and which ones are the . You can then go to the comparison sites, kbb.com, Edmunds.com and nada.com. In general, Clark likes you to run Carfax reports, so do that next. If you’re a AAA member, you get a discount on Carfax. The next step is to consider “manufacturer-certified” used cars. Finally, when you’re interested in a car, have it inspected by an ASE-certified mechanic. These steps won’t eliminate 100% of your problems, but they will help you get a much better buy.