An inspection costs money, so it is worth not spending it on a car that was never going to work out. Everything below takes about fifteen minutes at the first viewing, needs no tools, and rules out a surprising number of cars before anyone charges you anything.
To be clear about our own interest here: we would rather you booked one inspection on a car worth buying than three on cars that were not.
Before you leave the house
Run the rego through the free Queensland registration check and put the VIN through a PPSR search. It costs a few dollars and tells you whether there is money owing against the car, whether it has been written off, and whether it has been reported stolen. If any of those come back badly, you have saved yourself a drive.
Then ask the seller two questions by message, before you meet: how long have you owned it and why are you selling. Not because the answers are always true, but because you will have them in writing to compare against what the car and the paperwork say later.
Insist on a cold start
This is the most important thing on the page. Ask the seller not to start or move the car before you arrive, and arrange the viewing so that is reasonable — morning, at their address.
A cold engine tells you about hard starting, smoke on start-up, and the rattles and tappet noise that vanish within a minute of running. If you arrive and the engine is already warm, that may be innocent. Ask anyway, and consider coming back another time. A seller who will not let you start it cold has told you something.
The five-minute walk around
- Sight down each side in daylight. Find something straight to reflect — a fence, a gutter line — and look along the panels. Ripples mean filler.
- Compare panel gaps left to right. They should match. A bonnet or boot gap that tapers has usually been off the car.
- Check all four tyres and the spare. Four different brands is not a fault, but it tells you how the car has been maintained. Feel across each tread for uneven wear.
- Look at the ground where it normally parks. Not where it is parked for you. Drips leave a record.
- Open the boot and lift the floor. Damp, silt or a rusty spare well is worth knowing about before anything else.
Inside, in thirty seconds
Turn the ignition to accessory without starting. Every warning light on the dash should illuminate, then go out when the engine runs. A light that never comes on at all has usually been removed from the cluster, and that is deliberate.
Then check the wear against the odometer. A steering wheel worn smooth, shiny pedal rubbers and a sagging driver’s seat bolster on a car showing 60,000 kilometres do not agree with each other.
Match the paperwork to the car
Check the VIN on the compliance plate against the VIN on the registration papers and the PPSR result. All three should agree. Then look at the service book: dates and kilometres should progress sensibly, and the stamps should come from somewhere that exists.
When to stop and book
If the car gets through all of the above, you have found one worth paying to look at properly. What you cannot do from the driveway is read fault codes, measure paint depth panel by panel, load-test the battery, check brake and tyre wear against the manufacturer’s limits, or get underneath it — and those are where the expensive findings live.
That is the point at which we are worth the money. Not before. If you want to talk it through first, call us and describe the car — we will tell you honestly whether an inspection is even worth it, including when the answer is no.