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Pre-Inspection reports
- Thread starter blowers
- Start date
Kenty said:Don't the AA and RAC do these? They would be the people I would trust.
never had one done but i think if i was to then AA would be my first thoughts
allhitradio
Member
I had a report done by the RAC before I bought my car a few months ago. It highlighted quite a few, mostly minor, things whilst missing others completely (e.g. the bonnet wouldn't open...until I found the relevant thread on this forum, which explained that it was a common problem and what to do to overcome it).
The report produced a list of minor faults which I discussed with the Dealer. His response was 'No problem at all, we will put all of these right for you'. The problem was that we had no real way of checking whether the faults had actually been put right and, short of paying for a second inspection, how could we know? I suspect he put few, if any, of them right.
So, for me, the report was useful in terms of reassuring me that there was nothing catastrophic wrong with the car (I think it would have spotted a lemon) but it definitely had limitations without some sort of follow up.
With hindsight, some written inventory of the work carried out on the car, or some sort of 'sign off' from the dealer, would have given me more confidence that everything had been put right.
The report produced a list of minor faults which I discussed with the Dealer. His response was 'No problem at all, we will put all of these right for you'. The problem was that we had no real way of checking whether the faults had actually been put right and, short of paying for a second inspection, how could we know? I suspect he put few, if any, of them right.
So, for me, the report was useful in terms of reassuring me that there was nothing catastrophic wrong with the car (I think it would have spotted a lemon) but it definitely had limitations without some sort of follow up.
With hindsight, some written inventory of the work carried out on the car, or some sort of 'sign off' from the dealer, would have given me more confidence that everything had been put right.
I got the previous owner of mine to take it to an Indy (http://www.technosport.co.uk/) as I wasn't confident enough for the AA or RAC to inspect an M car and spot specific issues like with the VANOS, shim adjustments, rear springs etc. They also checked the usual tick box checks that the RAC/AA do as well. All passed ok and no complaints from me so far.
allhitradio
Member
richtea78 said:How do you know it would have spotted a lemon if they didnt spot the fault with the bonnet? That seems fairly obvious to notice to me!
Well, I suppose that's difficult to prove either way, now you come to mention. Maybe I was just lucky that the car didn't turn out to be a lemon.
The point I was trying to make is, that there's little point paying for an inspection unless you have some clear idea what you plan to do with the information, i.e. haggle the price down, get it fixed before fully committing to buy (unlike me, getting some sort of 'sign off' that the work has actually been done would be a good idea), or backing out of the deal altogether and moving on.