The whole history of your Omoda E5 is still in one house.
There is no line of previous owners behind this car and no folder of somebody else's habits to read, which sounds like having nothing to show and is not.
It means every question about it has an answer, and you are holding all of them. Used properly that is worth real money to you.
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The record
On this car you are the history, and that is a strong hand
Most cars we buy arrive with gaps nobody can fill, because the people who could fill them sold the car years ago. This one does not have that problem.
The ordinary version of this job involves a fair amount of detective work. A car turns up with three owners behind it, half a service book, a panel that is a slightly different shade and nobody left to ask about any of it. An inspector reads the car instead of being told about it, and where the reading runs out, a careful buyer fills the space with caution. That caution is not free and it does not come out of their pocket.
An Omoda E5 usually does not arrive in that state. It tends to be sold by the person who chose it, and that person can answer everything: what it has done all week, who else has had the keys, when it went in and who it went to, what that mark on the rear bumper actually was. None of it is written down anywhere and all of it is sitting in one head. Which means the conversation on the phone is not a formality before the real assessment. On this car it is a large part of the assessment.
The practical upshot is that we will ask you more than you might expect, and none of it is a trap. The questions below are the ones that decide what an inspector spends time on when they get to you. Answer them honestly, including the parts you would rather skip, and the figure we talk about on the phone is the figure still standing when somebody is looking at the car. Leave something out and it does not disappear. It just gets found later, in your driveway, by a stranger.
Only you can answer these
What we ask the owner of an Omoda E5
Five questions, and there is no document anywhere that answers a single one of them. That is the whole point of asking you.
- Are you the first owner, and did you order it or take one that was already sitting there?
- It sets the shape of everything else. If you specified it, you know what is on it and what is not, and if you took one that was already built, you know what you were handed rather than what you chose. Either answer is fine and both are useful before anybody starts looking at the car.
- What did it replace?
- A car bought to take over from a small hatch lives a different week from one that took over from something big, and the difference shows up in the seats, the boot and the front bumper. You are the only person who can tell us which of those it has been doing, and it points the inspector at the right end of the car.
- Who has been looking after it since you collected it?
- Not whether the book is stamped, but who you actually rang when something needed doing. A dealer, a local workshop, a mate who does it in his shed. All three are ordinary answers. What helps is knowing who to picture, and having whatever records exist sitting in the car on the day rather than promised afterwards.
- Has anybody outside the household been driving it?
- A partner, an adult child, somebody who borrowed it for a few months, a business that used it for a stretch. It is not a judgement on anybody. It simply tells us whether the account of the car we are getting covers all of its life or most of it, and we would far rather know which.
- Is there anything on it you would point out yourself before somebody else found it?
- This is the one worth thinking about for a minute. Everybody knows the scuff, the trim that rattles, the wheel that met a kerb. Named on the phone it is priced in and forgotten. Discovered by an inspector standing in your driveway, it turns into a conversation about what else has not been mentioned.
However well you remember it
Three things that hold whatever you can tell us
- A thin paper trail is not a thin car. Nobody is going to mark it down for having little history behind it. A short life honestly described is worth more here than a long one with the awkward parts left out.
- The battery is read on the day. The one part of this car that owes nothing to memory. It is measured rather than assumed, it sits alongside the body, the tyres and the condition, and it is not something you need to know anything about beforehand.
- Anything still owing goes straight to the financier. A loan or a novated lease is settled by us directly rather than left with you to chase, and where the payout comes to more than the car is worth, that shortfall is put in writing before you sign.
Before you ring
Three questions first owners put to us
I am the first owner. Does that count for anything?
It does, and more here than on most cars. It means there is nobody in the chain we have to guess about, so the things an inspector would otherwise have to work out for themselves can simply be asked and answered. Say so early on the call and it shapes the whole visit.
I have barely any paperwork for it. Is that going to hurt me?
Not on a car like this, where there has not been much time for paperwork to accumulate. Bring whatever exists and put it in the car on the day. What is missing gets covered by asking you, which is exactly what we would rather do anyway.
Should I get the little things sorted out before somebody comes?
No. Tell us about them instead. A mark you have described on the phone is already in the number, and a repair done in a hurry the week before is money you spend to change very little. Leave the car as it is and let it be seen honestly.
Tell us about the car you have owned and we will price that one.
Or call us on 03 9000 0075 and talk it through first.