Our top 5 things to do when purchasing a second hand vehicle!

There are a lot of things to consider when purchasing a second hand vehicle these days so that you can make the right decisions for yourself and or family moving forward. You should never just take a vehicle on the fact that it has a “ROADWORTHY” certificate, and think it’s a good thing. Firstly roadworthys are purely a simple and basic safety inspection on the vehicle. Things often get hidden, covered up as well as changed after inspection just so someone can sell the vehicle. Hence the reason we strongly recommend getting the Pre Purchase Inspection done as they are by far way more in depth inspections and give you a better understanding of what lies ahead, as well as more current photos so you can compare and see for yourself.

Now there are also some things you can do / ask the seller as well to get a basic idea of what you are getting yourself in for. Here is a list of some helpful questions and things you can do to help decide if this is the vehicle you want to proceed with and going further getting the pre purchase inspection done.

1. Do a PPSR check on the vehicle – this will let you know if there is finance owing on it, if its been stolen and recovered or even a repairable / stat write off.
2. Ask the seller to see the service log books to make sure servicing is up to date – if its an older vehicle or high mileage one ask to see service receipts
3. If you can’t view it ask the seller to do a facetime / zoom call and show you all the things they are aware of – IE; worst dents / scratches, interior, exterior walk around, listen to car start up and view dash while running and so on.
4. Are there any chips in the windscreen?
5. Ask for and or check the full tread on the tyres not just the good easy bits on the outside edges.

So there you have it, the 5 basic good starting points for you when looking at purchasing a second hand vehicle. We find once our customers have gone through these steps, they have a better idea and understanding should they want to actually move forward with the vehicle or nah this looks a bit sketchy and leave it at that. The benefit for you by following these 5 steps helps you determine if the owner has tried to hide / cover something up between the roadworthy and the sale which you will now be able to compare with your Pre Purchase Report to get a better understanding of the vehicle and the seller.