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| Inspecting the car |
| Most people rush straight to the test drive, not realising that most mechanical faults can be repaired for under $1,000 whereas $1,000 goes nowhere if the body, paint or interior needs major work. Check the whole car closely before you turn the key.
CHECK COMPLIANCE PLATE First, and most important, check the compliance plate. Is it missing? If so, why? Do the numbers and dates line up with other identification plates and stampings on the car? Do they line up with what appears on the registration certificate? Do they line up with what appears in the owner's manual and other documentation? Does it support the vendor's story? Is there a big gap between date of first registration and the compliance date? Has the compliance plate been tampered with? Has the panel that it is attached to been tampered with? Dodgy sellers can cut out the whole panel and weld it back into another car to avoid disturbing the compliance plate. HOW TO TELL IF THE SPEEDO HAS BEEN TAMPERED WITH Is the mileage genuine? Crooked sellers will whiz or wind back the odometer in the instrument panel, or even replace the whole instrument cluster with a lower reading from a wreck, for the simple reason that buyers will pay more for cars with lower mileage. Is the mileage consistent with the vehicle documentation? Are the numbers on the odometer scratched, misaligned, or even painted over? Are there scratches or other indicators around the dash that the instrument panel has been accessed or replaced? Are there signs of excessive wear -- heavily worn interior, pedal rubbers, worn seat belts and buckles, worn armrests and controls, a shiny steering wheel and gear-lever knob? Are these parts too new compared to those around them? Does the driver's door or seat sag? Are there signs of excessive paint chipping around the front of the car and driver?s door, scratches under the door handles, even chips that have been touched up? Check the boot and spare wheel as these are often overlooked. Has the suspension sagged? Have there been an excessive number of owners? Check the service books and receipts -- these can be conveniently lost on cars that have been "whizzed". LOOK FOR RUST, SUN DAMAGE AND BAD REPAIRS Serious rust looks innocuous at first -- just little blisters on the paint surface -- but it may be in the structure, it gets bad quickly and is expensive to fix. Check for water leaks in all sections of the car. Today, there's no need to buy a rusty car. Look for differences in paint finish and colour. Look for poor alignment between panels and styling lines. Check gaps between panels for consistency. Look for spanner marks on panel and door bolts. Repairs using cheap imitation panels that rust and don?t have the required strength can ruin a car. Cheap imitation headlights cut costs but they can be dangerously out of focus or they can leak, melt or fade and cost hundreds of dollars to replace with the genuine items. Some imitation tail lights can fill with water and generate boot leaks and quickly fade when exposed to the sun. Expensive paint, trim and plastic parts exposed to the Aussie sun can also be ruined. LOOK FOR OIL AND FLUID LEAKS Oil on the road or drive mean leaks, which are usually expensive to fix. The cleanliness of all fluids can tell you how well a car has been maintained. The engine oil might be clean but look inside the oil filler cap -- does the inside of the engine look clean? CHECK, CHECK AND CHECK AGAIN! In addition to the checks you can carry out yourself, get a professional pre-purchase inspection. Whoever you choose, make sure their first loyalty is to you, not the vendor, which means you choose the tester and pay for it yourself. Your state motoring organisation will offer pre-purchase inspections. State automotive trade bodies such as the VACC also offer tests. Independent testers who are qualified mechanics and panel beaters can be very good, because they quickly get to know the shonky operators, and may even save you the cost of a test. A trusted local mechanic or a specialist service centre that knows exactly what goes wrong with that model and knows how it left the factory can be particularly helpful for an unusual model. Even if a used car comes with a list of faults, it could still be a good buy if an expert can tell you how much it will cost to rectify and the selling price is right. If you are particularly concerned about crash history, a good panel beater should have the equipment to pick the extent of almost any repair. Each state registration authority should have a vehicles securities register which will tell you if the car is under a financial contract that has to be paid out before it can be sold. Check with the wreck register in case the vehicle was written off. Collect as many identification numbers as you can including the VIN ready for each call. Because of privacy laws, state registration authorities cannot divulge ownership details but they may be able to tell you whether what you have been told is consistent with the information they have in front of them. This is a vital check but you must collect the information first during the inspection of the vehicle. |
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