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I have sold many cars privately. I never had anyone take my car to have it checked out by a "mechanic"...except once. The guy was buying from out of state and never even came to look at the car so I completely understand. I had no problem taking it the dealership (of his choice) to have them check it out, I have nothing to hide. They gave my car clean bill of health and he bought the car. Again, he never came to look at it in person. I personally would never buy a car without seeing it in person.
The last car I sold about month ago, the buyer wanted to have it checked out by mechanic also. He scheduled appointment at a shop, and I agreed. However, he canceled at the last minute and decided to just make me an offer and bought the car. I guess he was just testing me to see what I do/say...or how I would react. Again, I have nothing to hide so I didn't mind taking it for inspection.
If the seller does not want to cooperate with a buyer's check, that means the buyer's check is already accomplished for free! Failed!
Plenty of vehicles for sale where the seller will cooperate.
Don
This.
Used cars are strictly an as-is sale. I don't care what service paperwork the seller has to show me, that doesn't mean there isn't something wrong with the car at the time I am considering buying it.
It goes for a bumper to bumper once over everything at the mechanic of MY choice, or I walk away.
There is something I wonder when I hear the advice "have a mechanic of your choice inspect a used car you're considering purchasing", which is good advice.
If the mechanic inspects the car, but then something the mechanic doesn't see turns out to be an expensive repair or even safety issue, what liability does the mechanic have in certifying that the car is in good condition?
I wonder if this would make some shops reluctant to do this kind of inspection because they're concerned it could come back and haunt them if the car ends up being a dud a month or a year later.
I'm in NYS, which requires safety inspections every year, so me, personally, I wouldn't be worrying about safety issues if I were buying used. If it ain't going to pass, it ain't going to pass. Period.
I would be holding the seller responsible for fixing the issues at THEIR expense or else subtracting the cost from the sale price. I don't buy any car that has issues that didn't occur during my ownership.
Exactly. These mechanics checkups are a waste of time and they always try to "find" something wrong with the car, so as a seller I don't like them. The last car I sold, the guy brought it to the Lexus dealership for a checkup and they said "you NEED new engine and cabin air filters, these ones are REALLY bad"; they wanted $100 to change these. I said "really? the cabin air filter has <300 miles on it and the engine air filter was done 2 months ago and these were OEM parts... does Lexus make parts this poorly?" Of course their response when I caught them in their lie was "oh, that comment must have been for some other customer"
All ranting aside, I find that the potential buyers who require a mechanic checkup almost always try to pay less for the car than educated buyers who are capable of making the decision on their own. As a seller, I prefer to make more money and also enjoy the added benefit of not having to waste half a day driving back and forth to mechanics, so I typically try to avoid these buyers. This last one was a fluke because the guy was flying in from out of town and driving the car home, so I understood his desire to have someone look at the car and I let him know that I would not offer a price reduction in any way; it would just be a "take it or leave it" inspection. He took it.
Anyone with a BRAIN knows you don't go to a dealership for anything related to repairwork unless you have a service contract that pays for it. They'll try to fix things that have nothing wrong with them just to make an extra buck.
And being that used car sales are as-is, any buyer has the right to know they are getting what they are paying for.
I have bought and sold a lot of vehicles since 1958, when I started driving.
In all those purchases, I never paid somebody else to "inspect" the vehicle I wanted. I understood from the get-go that the sale was "As-is, where-is, no warranty expressed or implied", except for a couple of Certified Pre-Owned (CPO) vehicles.
The vehicles I sold, if the potential buyer wanted a test drive (most do), I went with them. If they wanted an "independent inspection" (nobody ever asked), I would have gone with them for that, too. So long as the vehicle is in my name, it doesn't leave my sight!
Service records? Nobody ever asked for them, either. The last vehicle I sold, I kept the records for 6 months after the sale, and recently threw them away. The buyer didn't ask for them, and I didn't think to make the offer.
The last vehicle I bought (1999 Dodge Ram CTD with 160,000 miles), I test drove, noted 3 problems, and negotiated the price. The dealer solved one problem (tools missing), I was able to fix one problem (loose clamp on the turbo output pipe), and the other problem (worn third gear synchro clutch) maybe I will fix by replacing the transmission someday. Maybe. Since I bought it, the Throttle Position Sensor has failed, a leak developed in the hydro-boost brake actuator, and the A/C quit. An inspection the day I bought it would not have found any of those problems.
And being that used car sales are as-is, any buyer has the right to know they are getting what they are paying for.
Except you don know from an hour long inspection what's going to fail in the next month. Unless it's blatantly obvious enough that you could see it without taking it to the mechanic to start with.
I've never taken a used car to a mechanic before purchase (and I've bought over a hundred cars from private parties). And I've never had a buyer request a mechanic's inspection. And in order to keep from having a car stolen, I would not let someone take a car i was selling to some mechanic near where they come from (most of my cars have been sold to people who do not live close to me) without me going along with just to make sure they don't steal the car.
You have every right to not allow a buyer to do an inspection.
But inspections do reveal issues that would be costly.
Rarely. It can only tell you what's already wrong and those should be obvious to even a layperson on a test drive (noises, overheating, warning lights, etc). You're NEVER going to tell if the transmission is going to suddenly fail next week or next month with a cursory mechanic's inspection.
Let me ask you this (and anyone who's ever owned a car). When you've owned a car for a while, and something fails, how long before it failed did you know about it? Often times, especially when it's a large ticket item, there IS no real warning. Like, you blow a head gasket while driving down the highway, or the trans stops shifting. Both things, once they've happened, would be obvious on a test drive even without a mechanic, but you wouldn't know about them a week BEFORE they happened even WITH a mechanic's inspection. And those are just two examples. And a seller selling a car could have been driving it without flaw for the last 5 years and not know that one of those major things is about to fail, as HE would have no warning, either.
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