A pre-purchase inspection is not a warranty and not a valuation. It is one specialist’s account of a car on one day, and its value depends almost entirely on how carefully you read what it does not say.
This is how to read one, and what to ask the inspector before they go.
What a thorough inspection covers
The mechanical inspection is the part everybody expects and the least likely to differ between inspectors. The parts that vary are the history and the structure, and those are where the money is.
- The service history as a document trail, not a summary — who did what, when, and whether it is <a href="/guides/warranty-and-independents">written anywhere the manufacturer can see</a>
- Stored fault codes, including historic ones that have been cleared
- The underside and the structure, on a lift, not from a torch at the kerb
- Paint depth across the panels, which is how repairs are found
- Tyres and brakes by age and specification, not only by wear
- A road test, with the conditions it was done in recorded
Read what the inspector would not commit to
The most useful sentences in a report are the hedged ones. “Not inspected”, “not accessible without removal”, and “vendor states” each mark a boundary of what was actually established, and a report with none of them has either been unusually lucky or is not telling you where it stopped.
A qualification is not a failure of the inspection. An inspector who writes down what they could not reach is more useful than one who quietly leaves it out, and the difference between the two only shows if you look for it.
What is worth stopping for
Most findings are a negotiation. A few are a different conversation, and they tend to be the ones about the car’s past rather than its present condition.
Structural repair that is not disclosed, a service history that does not reconcile with the mileage, and evidence of damage the seller did not mention are all in that category — not because any of them is necessarily fatal, but because each one means the account you were given was incomplete, and you now have to price everything else you were told at the same discount.
Before the inspector goes
The report is shaped by what you asked for. Say what you are worried about and what the car is for; an inspection for a car that will be tracked is not the same as one for a car that will do a thousand miles a year.
- Whether the car will be on a lift, and whether wheels come off
- Whether they will road-test it, and for how far
- Whether you get photographs, and how many
- Whether they will speak to you afterwards, or only send the report
- What they will do if the seller declines part of the inspection
Information, not advice about any individual car. Guides are written by the register; where one is reviewed by a verified specialist, that is the same specialist you can book through this site.