What Dealers Look For at Inspection

What the inspection is actually for

When a dealer offers on your car, they're pricing a description: your rego, kilometres, condition rating and a handful of photos. That's enough to price a car within a range, which is why competing dealer offers can be made without anyone driving to your house.

The inspection closes the gap between the description and the metal. A buyer who has already put a number in writing, alongside other dealers who did the same, has very little room to invent problems. They just want the car to be what you said it was.

VIN, compliance plate and the odometer

Identity gets checked first. The VIN visible through the windscreen, the VIN on the compliance or build plate, and the VIN on your rego paperwork all need to match.

A mismatch, a disturbed plate, or a VIN that looks re-stamped stops a deal cold. It's rare, and it's the one finding that ends the conversation rather than adjusting the price.

They'll also read the odometer against what you submitted. A few hundred kilometres since you filled in the form is nothing. Ten thousand is a different car.

Paint depth and panel gaps

Most experienced buyers carry a paint depth gauge, which measures how thick the paint is on each panel in microns. Factory paint reads fairly consistently around a car.

A panel much thicker than the ones beside it has been resprayed. That isn't automatically a problem, since a resprayed bumper on a ten-year-old car is normal. Thick readings across a quarter panel, a sill and a door usually mean structural repair, and that prices differently.

They'll also check panel gaps, badge alignment, the finish inside the door shuts, overspray on rubber seals, and whether the bolt heads on the guards and bonnet have been cracked. Cars leave the factory with even gaps. Repairs rarely put them back perfectly.

Tyres and brakes

Tyres are the fastest read on how a car has been looked after. Four matching tyres from a known brand with even wear tell one story. Two premium on the front and two budget on the back tell another.

Tyres carry a four-digit date code on the sidewall giving the week and year they were made, so deep tread on very old tyres still means replacement before retail. Wear pattern matters more than depth either way. Wear on one shoulder points at alignment or tired bushes, which makes it a suspension job rather than a tyre one.

Brakes get a look through the wheels: pad thickness, a lip on the outer edge of the disc, scoring or heavy rust. Worn pads alone rarely move a number. Shot discs, or a shudder under braking, will.

Under the bonnet

They want oil clean and at the right level, coolant the right colour and not oily, and no weeping around the rocker cover, the sump, the power steering lines or the hoses.

A spotless engine bay on an older car isn't the win people think it is. A steam-clean can hide a leak that reappears in a week, and buyers know it.

Service stickers on the windscreen or under the bonnet get read and cross-checked against the logbook, along with the battery date and the state of the terminals.

The cold start

Buyers want the car cold. A warm engine hides a top-end rattle, a puff of blue or white smoke, a slow crank, a hesitant idle, a tensioner that quietens once oil pressure comes up.

If a buyer asks you not to warm it up before they arrive, that's why. Starting it cold in front of them suits you too, because it kills any suggestion afterwards that something was covered up.

The drive

The drive is short, usually ten or fifteen minutes with some open road in it.

In an automatic they're feeling shift quality: smooth changes under light throttle, correct gear holding, any flare or thump between shifts. In a manual it's the clutch bite point and whether it slips under load in the higher gears.

Steering gets tested for wander, vibration and clunks over bumps, and brakes get one firm stop to check for pulling and shudder. They listen for wheel bearing hum, a droning diff, exhaust blow, suspension knocks over speed humps, and whether the air conditioning gets properly cold.

The interior against the odometer

Interior wear is the cross-check on the reading. A steering wheel worn smooth, a collapsed driver's bolster and shiny pedal rubbers on a car showing 90,000km raise an obvious question.

It works in your favour too. A tidy cabin on a genuinely high-kilometre car supports the story that most of those kilometres were highway work.

Everything electrical gets pressed: windows, mirrors, central locking, the screen, reversing camera, seat heaters, sunroof. The dash gets watched through the ignition cycle so every warning light comes on and then goes out.

The logbook and the second key

A stamped logbook with a run of dated services is worth real money, especially on an older car. Loose invoices from a good independent mechanic count for nearly as much if they show the work and the odometer at the time. A missing logbook doesn't kill a deal, but it removes the evidence supporting the top of your price range.

The second key gets asked for every time. Replacing and programming one is a real cost, so a car with two keys is worth more than the same car with one. Find it beforehand, along with the owner's manual, spare wheel, jack, cargo blind and roof rack keys.

Why an offer gets revised down

Three things move a number at inspection, and none of them are mysterious.

• Undisclosed damage: repair work you didn't mention, hail, a repaired quarter panel, kerbed wheels, a cracked windscreen, dents you'd stopped noticing.
• More kilometres than stated, either because the form was optimistic or because you've kept driving since.
• A fault you didn't mention: a warning light, air conditioning blowing warm, a noisy wheel bearing, a gearbox that thumps into gear.

What doesn't move the number

Wear that matches the car's age and kilometres is already in the price. Nobody is startled by stone chips on a 2015 Corolla or a scuffed boot lip on a family CX-5.

A revision should come with something you can see. If the number changes, ask them to show you the panel, the reading or the fault. A straight buyer will walk you around the car and point at it.

How to make sure it doesn't happen to you

The whole risk in a car inspection before selling sits in the gap between your description and reality. Close it and the inspection is a formality.

1. Be brutal in the submission. Photograph the dents, the scratched bumper, the torn seat and the kerbed wheel. Disclosed damage gets priced in. Hidden damage gets discovered.
2. Enter today's odometer reading, not last month's, and say if you're still driving daily.
3. List every fault you know about, including the warning light you've ignored and the noise you only hear when it's cold.
4. Have the second key, the logbook, the service invoices and the spare wheel in the car.
5. Wash it and clear out the rubbish. It won't change the mechanical assessment, but it sets the tone.
6. Don't warm the engine up beforehand. Let them start it cold.
7. Have your rego papers and photo ID ready, and know your payout figure if there's finance on the car.

Why more than one offer matters

When one dealer is the only buyer looking at your car, all the leverage at inspection sits with them. When several have already put written numbers on the same car, you know roughly what the market says it's worth, and a revision nobody can point at is easy to walk away from.