Getting the vehicle history report for your car isn't rocket science, but there's a definite technique to doing it correctly. To start with, you need the vehicle VIN number which can be found in several locations throughout the car. By law the VIN number must be prominently displayed in the driver's side door well, the dashboard, on the engine block and on any paperwork that identifies the car and its owner.

There are several other places that the VIN number is metal stamped on the car such as inside certain non-moving parts but those vehicle numbers are there to prevent cars from being chopped into pieces, stolen or to identify vehicles that have been in serious accidents. It is definitely against the law to tamper with a vehicles VIN number so in most cases, if you can read the number in more than one location on the car it is probably correct.

After that you need to run a VIN check at one of various locations either on the internet or over the phone and shortly thereafter you will have received the complete vehicle history report or a lesser report depending upon exactly what you order.

Two of the better known web sites that offer such services oline are Carfax and Autocheck that will run a variety of different car history checks off of the VIN number. Carfax was the first of these companies and has become the internet standard of VIN number checks for used autos. With an unblemished history of excellence and a searchable database of over 3 BILLION records on cars all around the country, there's very little that happens to cars, new and used, that Carfax doesn't know about.

For a small fee, you simply enter your personal information, the VIN number of the car you wish to check on, select the information you require about the car and shortly you'll have a printable history on the car you are interested in buying that you can rely on for for honesty, accuracy and dependability.