Data sources: where vinfax pulls every Copart and IAAI listing from

vinfax is a free public-data archive that mirrors every public auction listing that Copart and IAAI publish on their open catalogues, going back to 2024. No private feeds, no third-party broker data, no scraping behind member logins, no purchased data drops. This page documents our data sources in plain terms — buyers, journalists and researchers can trace every record back to its source, and that traceability is the whole point. We treat transparency about data sources as a feature, not a footnote.

Where the data comes from

Both data sources are public-data catalogues — no login at either source, no broker in between, and no public-data field is paywalled before vinfax sees it.

Copart — the public catalogue at copart.com. Each public auction listing exposes the VIN, lot ID, year, make, model, trim, primary and secondary damage codes, body type, odometer, title state, run-and-drive status, photos, the yard, the scheduled auction date, and the current bid. vinfax pulls from the same lot pages a visitor sees without a Copart member account. We do not sign in, we do not pay for a private feed, and we do not bypass access control.

IAAI — the public catalogue at iaai.com. Same fields: VIN, lot ID, year/make/model, damage codes, odometer, title state, location, auction date, photos and bid. IAAI hosts its imagery on a separate CDN (vis.iaai.com) but the data shape is otherwise comparable to Copart. Both sources are public; both are what vinfax indexes.

What we collect, what we don't

Refresh cadence

• Every 30 minutes — fresh lot fetches from the public Copart and IAAI catalogues. New auction listings appear in the archive within this window.
• Daily 06:10 — existing lots are revisited to capture status changes: bid updates, sold flag, withdrawn flag, auction-date shifts.
• Daily 02:30 — sitemap regeneration so search engines pick up new VIN URLs.
• Continuous — the photo-recovery pipeline runs against any car not yet on our R2 storage.

Practical implication: brand-new public listings can be 0-30 minutes behind the source page, and a sold-flag change may lag the source by up to 24 hours. If you need real-time bid data, use the source link — the vinfax auction archive is a record, not a live ticker.

How attribution works

Every car page carries an "External links" section that links back to the originating Copart or IAAI lot. Source links use rel="nofollow noopener" so vinfax does not pass link equity to the auction sites — attribution is for the reader, not for SEO. The free VIN check shows every public listing on record for a 17-character VIN, each row with its own source link. That is the traceability promise: nothing on vinfax is unsourced.

We do not edit titles, damage codes, photos or any structured field. What Copart or IAAI publishes is what vinfax shows. If the source corrects an entry, the next re-fetch picks it up. If the source removes a listing, the archived record stays on vinfax with its source link intact, so the public record does not disappear when the auction page does.

Photos and storage

Original photos live on Copart and IAAI CDNs. Both auction houses retire their imagery once a lot is sold — within weeks, the source URLs return a 404 and the visual record is gone. vinfax mirrors every photo to Cloudflare R2 under our own domain (r2.vinfax.net) and serves only from there. We never hotlink the source CDN to end users. New listings can briefly show a placeholder thumbnail while the R2 sync queue catches up; once mirrored, the photo is permanent.

What vinfax is NOT — honest data limits

• Not a substitute for a paid Carfax or AutoCheck report. Those products license private DMV title-history feeds and dealer service-record networks that vinfax does not have. If your decision depends on a complete title chain, buy the paid report.
• Not a substitute for a physical inspection. We mirror what Copart and IAAI photograph. We do not see the car, do not lift it, do not pull the carpet. Frame damage and flood-line evidence are inspection findings, not auction-listing fields.
• Not a substitute for talking to the seller. vinfax is read-only over public auction data — we do not broker, mediate or verify private-party sales.
• Damage codes are imprecise. Copart and IAAI assign primary damage at intake — sometimes conservative, sometimes generous. A "MINOR DENT/SCRATCHES" lot can hide structural damage; an "ALL OVER" lot can be cosmetic. Verify any code that matters by inspection or a salvage title check.
• Coverage is two-source. Manheim, ADESA, ACV and dealer-only auctions are not in the archive. If your VIN sold through one of those channels, vinfax will show zero hits — that absence is not proof the car was never auctioned.

Reporting an error

Transparency only works if errors get corrected, and an honest archive depends on outside eyes. If a car or VIN looks wrong on vinfax — wrong photos, wrong damage code, a VIN that should not be public — email [email protected] with the VIN or the lot URL. We will re-fetch from the source, correct, or remove the record. The same address handles takedown requests and data-correction notes; the contact page lists the rest.

Get started

Two ways to use the free auction archive — paste a VIN, or browse the public catalogue.

Run a free VIN check → Browse the auction archive →

Want the bigger picture? Read how vinfax works or the privacy policy.