Free VIN Title & History Check
Enter a VIN, get every free check at once: open recalls (automated), insurance theft/total-loss, salvage auction history. No login, no $40 Carfax.
17 alphanumeric characters, no I/O/Q. Your VIN never leaves your browser except for the NHTSA recall lookup.
🚗 Vehicle (NHTSA decode)
Looking up…
📋 Open Recalls (NHTSA)
Checking recalls…
🔍 Free Third-Party Checks
These sources are free but require manual lookup (each protects against bot scraping). Click any button to open a pre-filled search in a new tab, or use the open-all button below.
What each free source actually covers
The short version: No single free source replaces a $5
NMVTIS report. But the four below collectively catch ~95% of what would
matter — most salvage cars end up at Copart or IAA, most insurance write-offs
are in the NICB database, and recalls are always at NHTSA.
| Source | What it catches | What it misses |
|---|---|---|
| NHTSA Recalls automated above |
Every open and completed safety recall by year/make/model. Updates within days of NHTSA announcement. | Service bulletins (TSBs), Tesla-internal advisories, voluntary fixes. |
| NICB VINCheck manual, free, 5/day per IP |
Theft records and total-loss declarations from ~80% of US insurers (participating members of NICB). | Insurers not in NICB (rare), state DMV salvage titles not reported by an insurer. |
| Copart manual, free, lot photos |
Insurance/salvage auctions handled by Copart — by far the largest US salvage auction house. Photos of damage, sale price, sale date. | Cars sold privately, non-salvage auctions (Manheim, BSC, dealer auctions). |
| IAA (Insurance Auto Auctions) manual, free, lot photos |
The other half of the salvage auction market (now owned by Ritchie Bros). Same data as Copart for cars that went their way. | Cars sold privately or through other auction networks. |
For Tesla specifically
Two additional sources are worth checking after delivery:
- Tesla service mode (in-car) — Once you have the car, the touchscreen's service mode shows total odometer history, original delivery date, and Tesla service center records. It's the most authoritative source for Tesla history but only accessible from the vehicle.
- Tesla account API — If the previous owner properly unlinked the car, your Tesla account will show the original delivery date, factory build configuration, and total mileage at delivery handoff. If they didn't, you'll see a "vehicle already linked to another account" error — call Tesla support to force-unlink. This is common with private-party purchases.
What no free source can tell you
The honest gaps in any free aggregation:
- Body shop history paid out of pocket — if the previous owner had a fender bender and paid the body shop in cash without involving insurance, no public database has it. Pre-purchase inspection is the only way to catch this. (Use our 65-point checklist.)
- Odometer rollback across multiple state titles — NMVTIS catches this; that's what the paid services charge for. If the seller has owned the car continuously and you can see the title in their name, rollback is unlikely.
- Minor accidents reported only to one insurer — these sometimes appear in NICB, sometimes don't. Carfax and AutoCheck buy accident data from police departments and major insurance carriers, which is the differentiator.
- Lemon law buybacks in some states — most states record this on the title (and NMVTIS catches it), but a few states don't, and the buyback can be transferred to a clean title in another state. This is the "title washing" problem.
Recommended workflow
- Run the automated NHTSA recall check above.
- Click Open All Free Checks to open NICB, Copart, IAA, and the NHTSA recall page in new tabs.
- Solve the NICB CAPTCHA, glance at each result page (most takes 5 seconds).
- If anything red appears at any of the four sites, stop and re-evaluate.
- If everything is clean, you've covered the major free sources. For full peace of mind on a high-dollar purchase, spend $5 on a VinAudit report.
- Always do a pre-purchase inspection — no database catches body shop work paid in cash.