The Sealion 6 has two drivetrains, so both get checked.
A Sealion 6 is a plug in hybrid, so there is an engine carrying a service history and a battery carrying a state of health reading.
A buyer who only looks at one of them is estimating the other half of your car.
- Plug in hybrid
- Australia wide
- Finance settled directly
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Both halves
There are two histories sitting in this car
Petrol buyers read the engine and treat the battery as an unknown. Electric buyers do the reverse. A plug in hybrid needs somebody comfortable doing both jobs.
The awkward thing about selling a plug in hybrid is that it does not sit neatly inside either conversation. Take it to somebody who trades petrol cars and the battery becomes a risk they would sooner discount than investigate. Take it to somebody who deals only in electric cars and the engine is the bit that gets a shrug. Either way, half of what you own is being estimated rather than examined.
Here it gets both. The battery has a state of health reading and the inspector takes it at your place, the same as on any car we buy that plugs in. The engine has an ordinary service history, and that is judged the way engines have always been judged, by what has been done to it and by whom. Neither half is treated as somebody else's department, and neither one is left as a guess to be covered by taking money off.
The practical effect for you is that less of the car ends up as an open question, and open questions are the part that gets priced nervously. It does mean we ask you more than we would about a car with no engine in it, simply because there is more car to ask about. That is the trade for owning two drivetrains, and it is worth a few extra minutes on the phone.
In the driveway
What we ask about a Sealion 6
Four questions, covering both halves of the car, because leaving either one out is how a plug in hybrid ends up undervalued.
- When was the engine last serviced, and who did it?
- This is the half that buyers who specialise in electric cars tend to skip. Dealer or independent makes no difference to us. We would like to know who has been looking after it and whether the record travels with the car, because an engine with a documented history answers its own questions and one with a verbal history leaves them open.
- Has the small auxiliary battery been replaced?
- The little one that runs the electrics, not the drive battery. It is a minor component that causes a disproportionate amount of grief once it is tired, so if it has been changed that is worth telling us, and if you have no idea, that is a perfectly normal answer as well.
- Is it charged at home, or does it mostly run on fuel?
- Both are fine and neither is the wrong way to own a plug in hybrid. All it tells us is which half of the car has been doing the work, and that is a far more useful thing to know before the inspector arrives than after.
- Which cable set is with the car?
- A plug in hybrid still comes with charging gear and it still counts towards what you are paid. Whatever is in the boot goes into the number as part of the sale, so it is worth checking that all of it is still there before the day.
Whichever half worried you
Three things that hold for both drivetrains
- Both halves get looked at. The engine's history and the battery's reading, in one visit, by the same person, so no part of your car is left standing as an assumption.
- A plug in hybrid still has a battery worth reading. State of health is taken on a Sealion 6 exactly as it is taken on a car with no engine at all, and it belongs in the valuation either way.
- Where you live is not the obstacle. We buy Australia wide and we are weighted to Victoria, and the inspector travels to the car rather than asking you to deliver it somewhere.
Before you call
Three questions Sealion 6 owners put to us
Do you value it as an electric car or as a petrol one?
As what it is, which is both at once. The battery gets a state of health reading and the engine is assessed on its history and its condition, and the offer is assembled from the whole car instead of from whichever half is quicker to price.
The engine has done most of the work. Is that against me?
No, and it is useful for us to know. It tells the inspector which half of the car deserves the most attention on the day, and it is exactly the sort of thing that is better said on the phone than found in the driveway.
How much service history do you need to see?
Whatever exists, sitting in the car. If it is patchy or has gone missing somewhere along the way, say so when we speak. A gap you have told us about is a known quantity, and one we come across ourselves is not.
Have the engine and the battery both looked at.
Or call us on 03 9000 0075 and talk it through first.