Which vehicle report?

In the process of buying a first car for my son and will look to get one of those vehicle reports when we get closer to something suitable.
There's a few different organisations to get them from; Carjam, Motorweb, AA, all about $20 a pop.
Is one better than the other? Any recommendations?

i think that for the $20 type of report they all access exactly the same databases so maybe there's no real difference except car jam is certainly popular. It's just data on wof, money owing, title etc.
Will you get a full pre purchase mechanical report done too?

Price range we're looking at will be $3500 or less so not sure if we can justify $150 on a mechanical check, still sitting on the fence. We figure it's going to be an older car so maintenance and repairs will be inevitable. Is a mechanical check any guarantee that we won't be facing a $2000 repair bill 4 months down the track?
Happy to be persuaded that it's worth spending the $150 though.

The $150 might stop you spending 2k repairing a lemon in a week though.
Depends what it uncovers. maybe nothing, which is also a good result if there is nothing to find.

for that money . 2500$+ is what 600$ cars where in the 90s now below that expect to buy scrap metal.
so your in the low end of prices with 3500$
you can only buy 90s toyotas with 4 cilinder petrol engine if you wish to not have problems rust will be the biggest problem on these and then neglect like if the oil filler cap looks like it runs taar in the engine then you can shut the bonnet again cooling system neglect is another issue , but thats about it electronic wise these toyotas dont fail in a expensive fation. and if they do there is plenty cars who have not failed electronic parts to use secoundhand from
450,0000km is the predicted live span of these toyotas trouble free automatic 3 and 3speed-overdrive versions .

Hi tamarillo, how do you rate those S80s? Reliable?