Before you make a decision to buy your next used vehicle, run the vehicle's Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) through the following free VIN report service provided by the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB).
NICB VINCheck
The NICB provides a free lookup service to the public to determine if the vehicle, identified by the VIN, has been reported as salvage or stolen but not recovered. The service is called, VINCheck.
When you select the VINCheck search, you are presented with the following screen to enter the vehicle's VIN:

To perform the search, do the following:
1. Enter the vehicle's VIN number in the "Enter VIN" field
2. Read the terms and conditions and check the checkbox
3. Click on the "I'm not a robot" captcha checkbox.
4. Click on the Search VIN button.
VINCheck will look up the information on the vehicle and show a summary like the following:

As you can see, VINCheck provides limited but information about the vehicle.
If you want more information about the vehicle's specifications and the vehicle's history like service records, DMV records, recalls, etc., you should check out the following low cost VIN reports:
Also, check out this post on the comparison of VINCheckPro and VinAudit to CARFAX to understand why these two low cost VIN reports are comparable options.