Vehicle History and Vin#

[scguy]

I just called the local dealership to see if by the Vin # they could tell me if there was any RMS or IMS work done on my vehicle in the past.

The guy told me that unless I got written permission from the pervious owner/owners, that by law, they can't release any history records for the vehicle.

I told him I didn't need a print out or anything just him telling me over the phone if these items were in the history of the car and I got the same response.

Is this correct? Do I actually have to track down the first owner from 1999 to be able to figure out what all has been done to my car?

The only thing car fax shows is "vehicle serviced at dealership" on several occations but doesn't say for what (im assuming most of them were regular maintenance).

[wross996TT]

TMK, you can get history using several online services and I don't think they need owner's permission...I think there is a charge for this.

[goldenwarrior1]

Loren, maybe you can chime in here as you are more in tune with Porsche data services. But as I understand it, the maintenance history resides on Porsche's servers and is not accessible via any other commercial source. Unless you subscribe to Porsches services this information is not available. And I suspect you have to agree to abide by certain privacy rules to use the data. The only commercially available information I know of is what is maintained by government sources such as DMV etc. This data is sold to secondary sources such as Carfax etc for redistribution at a fee.

R/ GW

[beauar]

U had the same thing and the Porsche dealer told me that I couldn't get the info over the phone but said as long as I came in with the car they would print out the service history on it for a full report of what was done. They need to verify you are the owner of the vehicle. They shouldn't be asking for the original owner for service history....unless it had all of his info and they didn't want to give that to you. If this is the case you can ask them to block out the original owners info such as name and address and just show the VIN and service history.

Hope this helps,

Beau

I just called the local dealership to see if by the Vin # they could tell me if there was any RMS or IMS work done on my vehicle in the past.

The guy told me that unless I got written permission from the pervious owner/owners, that by law, they can't release any history records for the vehicle.

I told him I didn't need a print out or anything just him telling me over the phone if these items were in the history of the car and I got the same response.

Is this correct? Do I actually have to track down the first owner from 1999 to be able to figure out what all has been done to my car?

The only thing car fax shows is "vehicle serviced at dealership" on several occations but doesn't say for what (im assuming most of them were regular maintenance).

[Loren]

Loren, maybe you can chime in here as you are more in tune with Porsche data services. But as I understand it, the maintenance history resides on Porsche's servers and is not accessible via any other commercial source. Unless you subscribe to Porsches services this information is not available. And I suspect you have to agree to abide by certain privacy rules to use the data. The only commercially available information I know of is what is maintained by government sources such as DMV etc. This data is sold to secondary sources such as Carfax etc for redistribution at a fee.

R/ GW

That is my understanding for the US.

Other countries may have different rules/laws.

[rprieto]

Loren, maybe you can chime in here as you are more in tune with Porsche data services. But as I understand it, the maintenance history resides on Porsche's servers and is not accessible via any other commercial source. Unless you subscribe to Porsches services this information is not available. And I suspect you have to agree to abide by certain privacy rules to use the data. The only commercially available information I know of is what is maintained by government sources such as DMV etc. This data is sold to secondary sources such as Carfax etc for redistribution at a fee.

R/ GW

I have to agree with GW. Being 2nd owner I asked the servicing dealer for a printout but would not for privacy issues. Dealer offered to view, on screen, service history.