What is Pre Purchase Car Inspection & How Is It Performed?

• Car inspection,
• Oct 14, 2019

 

As soon as you step into the market in order to purchase a vehicle of your choice, you either have two options; purchase a brand-new car or get a used one for cheaper. Normally, the people with a large sum of money would go with the former option, however, many would consider the latter. If you’re one of the people who go with the second option, you should, of course, perform some checks when buying a second-hand car, i.e. do pre purchase car inspection.

 

Most of you would go all “what” and “woah, what is that?” upon hearing the last few words, but hold your horses, we will cover all the aspects of the aforementioned terminology in this article. Let’s start with the basics first

 

What is Pre Purchase Car Inspection?

To put simply, Pre Purchase Car Inspection is a series of preliminary checks performed on different aspects of a vehicle before it is ready to be purchased by a customer. Usually, it is done upon request of a client and costs the client a minimal amount of money as compared to the actual cost of the vehicle. Several vehicle checks like the auto checks on the car engines, lights, brakes, steering, suspension, and transmission, etc. are performed. These allow a customer, before he buys a vehicle, about the issues in the car. These issues can then be compensated by a discount on the total price of the vehicle.

 

It should be noted that the inspection of your vehicle is performed by an auto-expert (an expert on automobiles). As the name suggests, the process consists only of “inspection” and highlighting of the found issues, not their fixing. If you want these issues to be fixed, ask your dealer to fix them for you and then you can purchase the car as if it had no issues in the first place.

 

An expert’s opinion; Never get your dealer to fix the issues for you, instead, take the price discount and fix the issues yourself. Dealers, unless they are completely trustworthy, tend to scam people and the “fixing” they do might just be a temporary one which ends up costing you even more.

 

How much does the Pre Purchase Car Inspection cost?

The process of Pre Purchase Car Inspection, although time-taking, is quite reasonable when it comes to cost. The value delivered by this inspection is great, and it is totally worth all the money. Although it is not necessarily required before purchasing a car, it is highly recommended. The fact that you can know about the issues involved with the vehicle you are going to purchase might end up saving you more money than it costs to fix them in the first place. Therefore, you are eventually saving greater than what you are purchasing. Car inspection costs can vary depending on several different factors.

 

In Australia, Pre Purchase Car Inspection can cost anywhere from $100 to $350 depending on the quality of the inspection. Basic inspection by a mediocre mechanic or person with vehicle knowledge might cost you less but he/she would not be able to deliver the perfect result. Meanwhile, if done by a person with sound knowledge about vehicles, a thorough inspection may actually lead to several issues popping up with your vehicle which you can avoid in the future.

 

How does the Pre Purchase Car Inspection work?

So, you managed to reach this part of the article. Congratulations, and good luck because you are going to need it for the upcoming part where we explain the detail of the topic in focus. Without further ado, let’s dig deeper.

 

Pre Purchase Car Inspection requires a certified expert with deep knowledge and understanding of the vehicle as well as extensive experience. This ‘inspector’ is usually a mechanic who knows the working of vehicles more than both you and I combined and has inspected a lot of different vehicles. He/she then starts inspecting different parts of the vehicle you like and are ready to purchase.

 

He/she would, usually, check the exterior of the car like tyres, body, windows and screens, paint, and lights. When this part has been performed successfully, the interior of the vehicle becomes the target of the inspector. Here, he examines gauges, brakes, electronic systems, heaters, and air conditioning units, seats, and fluids along with suspension and transmission. The last two items, however, are not as thoroughly inspected as the are done in the upcoming step. In the final step, the instructor takes the car for a test drive where he figures out the rest of the things like engine, shifting, transmission, brakes, steering and everything he can find out with a short test drive. This also includes fuel consumption problems.

 

When the test drive has been finished, the inspector finalizes his results by a quick review of the vehicle and his own findings and sees if he missed any part or made a mistake. Most of the time, no mistakes are found since the inspectors are highly trained and experienced individuals and make a really low number of mistakes. 

With the final step being done, the inspector compiles a list of the results he had found during the inspection of your vehicle and hands over the report to you for checking. If there are any issues, you could easily spot them and their condition e.g., whether they are severe and need any fixing or if they can simply be ignored until they get worse.

 

If there are any kind of issues with your vehicle, you can get them fixed by asking your dealer or alternatively, you can take some price discount in the vehicle while you fix them by yourself. As mentioned before, it is always better to fix these issues by yourself instead of getting the dealer to do it in order to avoid any potential scams.

 

Is Pre Purchase Car Inspection worth it?

In all honesty and to give a short answer, yes. For a more detailed explanation, pre purchase car inspection can save you from potential future problems. Instead of spending money over and over again, you can instead opt to spend a little bit of amount more to save you from any future calamities. So, in our opinion, pre purchase car inspection is highly recommended, but not required. It all falls on your shoulders, whatever you do, we believe that it will be the right option!

 

Since the topic is of car inspection, did you know that you can easily perform a REVs check on your vehicle for a really low cost and do it efficiently before you purchase a vehicle? QuickRevs offers to do it for you using a simple procedure which is both time and cost-efficient, learn more about the services offered by them on their website quickrevs.com.au.d