I was looking for a used car for two reasons, my family now has four drivers,( the kids grow up so fast), and my minivan is pushing the 200,000 mile mark and I am not sure how much longer it will last. I decided to purchase the car from an auto auction, and in the process teach my kids a life lesson. Prior to attending the auction I purchased a five report package from CarFax and we studied the auction list carefully for models and years we might be interested in. My two teenagers got the book values for those cars and we got to the auction early to inspect the cars. After weeding out the list we were down to four vehicles that we would bid on. That's when we completed the most important part of our homework. We got the CarFax for those vehicles. While all of the vehicles had fairly good reports one stood out and had a +$1400 rating over the book value of the car. We decided to concentrate on that car first and were astonished that we were able to get that car with a bid of $1800 less than the book value, knowing full well that the vehicle only had one previous owner and a +$1400 rating from CarFax. We walked out of there with a new car for our family and the children learned how to inspect used cars,(we inspected over 30 cars that day), find a good price for each vehicle and get the background needed to make a smart purchase of a used car by getting the CarFax.