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Having lived in Texas 99.9% of my life, that’s nothing I’d ever really check for…. Until my father who lives up north now said sometimes cars that aren’t road worthy due to severe rusting from road salt up north will get shipped to the south where people won’t bother lookin for it.
Quoted From SpawnedX:
Rust.
Being a technician at a GM dealer we do the “Optimum Used Cars” which is a 150 point safety inspection front to back, every part of the car you can think of for fit, form and function. If the brakes have less than 40% left they get changed (unlike 1.5mm Ontario DOT safety standards). Basically everything on the car has to be checked over and repaired if it’s going to be on the lot as an Optimum used vehicle.
Up here rust is a big issue, if I were buying a vehicle for myself that’d be my #1 to look for, both the body and underneath. It’s not uncommon for vehicles that are as new as 3 or 4 years old stating to rust and having to replace brake lines and all that fun stuff if they’re not oil sprayed underneath every year since new! Salt can be on our roads as early as now and as late as early May depending on temperatures. Calling for lows between 12 and 18 degrees F this weekend with some snow possible overnight so I imagine the salt will be hitting the pavement pretty quick!
Fluid leaks for obvious reasons. Next, pull any dipstick in sight and look for shiny metal flakes in the fluids. Avoid that car like the Bubonic Plague morphed with HIV and Siphilis.
Also, tire wear patterns. Are you going to buy this car off of the lot, only to drive it to the shop down the street and pay through your nose for a 4 wheel alignment?
Road test: Find out what that noise is BEFORE you discuss pricing.
Also make the spare tire and included jack/tools is not missing. Twice I’ve bought a used car only to find out I don’t have a spare.
Researc the car on what problems they are prone to having, and figure out what the symptoms of those problems are…then look for them.
Thanks julian, pcmdjason, and Shaun_300 for the tips on rust. The idea of dealers from the north sending rusty cars down south is an interesting one to look out for pcmdjason!
Quoted From mckrishes:
a good obd II computer that can analyze current problems and any history of previous problems
Thanks mckrishes. In conversations with many mechanics, I was surprised at the number who did not include a code scan as a regular part of their inspection process. At many of the chains thay charge extra for a code scan. I would think that scanning the engine codes and jotting down that information is not too terribly time consuming if you have the computer already available – or am I wrong about this? Does it take a while to look up the relevant information?
Quoted From Chevypower:
Fluid leaks for obvious reasons. Next, pull any dipstick in sight and look for shiny metal flakes in the fluids. Avoid that car like the Bubonic Plague morphed with HIV and Siphilis.
Also, tire wear patterns. Are you going to buy this car off of the lot, only to drive it to the shop down the street and pay through your nose for a 4 wheel alignment?
Road test: Find out what that noise is BEFORE you discuss pricing.
Thanks Chevypower! When you look at the fluids, do you just do a visual inspection to check for metal flakes? Do you run any type of chemical or physical tests on any of the fluids? I know there are lots of tools for doing this and people seem to be divided as to their usefulness.
Tire wear patterns are a great idea. There are so many complex suspension and alignment problems that can show up the weird tire wear patterns.
I agree the road test is also essential. Experienced car purchasers are divided as to whether to negotiate on price before or after. Negotiating before means that you have a price that you’ll be happy with assuming the car is fine. Any issues mean a subtraction from that baseline price, meaning a better deal for you. But if the problem is significant, it usually means starting over the negotiations from scratch, so either way of handling things could probably work just fine.
Quoted From twiggy02919:
Also make the spare tire and included jack/tools is not missing. Twice I’ve bought a used car only to find out I don’t have a spare.
I’m glad you mentioned this. I found this present on a few inspection checklists and absent from a few others, and I always thought it was a great idea.
By the way, is that a border collie in your picture? My parents have one and she’s a blast to play with.
Quoted From julian:
Researc the car on what problems they are prone to having, and figure out what the symptoms of those problems are…then look for them.
Thanks julian. This is really the main idea behind our statistical methology for guiding the inspection process. We’ll look at repair rates of various components and optimize our inspection to focus on areas of a car that are more prone to failure.
What resources do you use now to do this research? I know of a lot of places to find reliability studies, reliability ratings, and test drive data, but is there any resource (or resources) you’ve found particularly valuable for looking up the problems that cartain makes and models are prone to having?
Quoted From 3SheetsDiesel:
Pre-purchase inspections wouldn’t bother me in the slightest if I got paid on the clock, but unfortunately I don’t. The place I work, as is true for most automotive shops, pays flat rate, which I believe Eric talked about on his ETCG1 channel. To use that same 3/10ths that I mentioned, for me, that’s $6.48 before taxes come out. I think I’m worth more than $6.50 an hour, but if the car ties up my lift for an hour, and all I got paid was those original 3/10ths…
Thanks for the great reply 3SheetsDiesel. What you mention about pay is exactly what I thought would be an issue for most mechanics performing an inspection. I guess it does depend a lot on how your shop charges customers. I did watch Eric’s video on the ETCG1 channel and that was quite helpful.
I would say unless you see an inspection as a way to build business for the shop, it probably doesn’t make much sense to do them at the cost you were mentioning. As you said, if you do it well and find a lot of problems, they probably won’t even buy the car, so you won’t be able to fix it for them. I know several shops in my area actually perform inspections at a loss. Several places charge $30-50 for an inspection that will take 45 minutes to over an hour, so I know they’re not getting all the money their time is worth. But most of these shops will make sure the customer has a great experience during the inspection and make them a fan for life. If your shop is able to save a customer from a bad purchase, or even just help them negotiate down a price because of needed repairs, they’ll probably come back to your shop next time they need a major repair.
Still, there are other shops that charge closer to $100 for an inspection, so they’re charging closer to a normal diagnostic labor rate and they may be getting their money’s worth.
Quoted From jbone:
I think what beefy is saying that if someone clears the computer it takes about that many miles for it to show up again….And if seller doesn’t want u to take it for that long then maybe he might be hiding something…..
Thanks for the clarification jbone. This makes sense. Still, I would think the test drive would start getting a little awkward around the 30th minute unless you explained your rationale.
Quoted From zakmartin:
A paint thickness tester goes a long way when checking to see if there were any repairs done on the car. If you’re going to be in the inspection business, you should get one.
Thanks zakmartin. Is the paint thickness meter something most mechanics would be expected to have around the shop? Or is this something that would generally just be found at body shops?
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