Your Kona Electric is more than its age and its odometer.
Two of these can share a build year and a set of kilometres and be a long way apart, and nothing on a listing tells you which one is in front of you.
The state of health reading and the paperwork do, so we go through both.
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The long ownership
A car kept for years gets priced on what can be shown
Age and kilometres are the two things a buyer can get without leaving their desk, and on a car like this they are the two that decide the least.
If you have had this one from new, or bought it from somebody else and kept it since, you know things about it that never reach an advert. Which winters it spent outside. Whether the same workshop has seen it every time. Whether the cable in the boot is the original or the one you bought after the first went missing between owners. A buyer working off a screen cannot ask any of that, so they price what they can see and take a margin for the rest.
That margin is the expensive part and it is almost entirely about the battery. The inspector who comes to you takes the state of health reading instead, and on a car that has been on the road a while that reading separates one from another far better than the plate ever could. No amount of staring at a build year tells anybody where yours sits.
The other half is what you can hand over. A long ownership usually produces a folder, or a plastic sleeve in the glovebox, or a photograph of an invoice on somebody's phone. Whatever shape it is in, have it out on the day. What can be shown gets priced. What can only be remembered has to be taken as something you were told, which is not us being difficult. It is what anybody buying the car after us would do too.
Before the inspector arrives
What we ask a long term owner
They are all about the years behind the car rather than the day it is sold, and not one of them is a test the car can fail.
- Who has serviced it, and was it always the same place?
- A car that went back to one workshop for years has a history somebody can follow, which tells us more than a book with a different name in every line. If it moved from a dealer to a local mechanic along the way, that is ordinary. We would still rather hear it.
- Has anything been done to the battery or the high voltage side of it?
- If it has, the paperwork is the valuable half. An invoice, a job card, a letter, whatever came with the work, have it with the car on the day. What can be evidenced is priced as work. What cannot has to be taken as a story, through no fault of yours.
- Which charging cables are actually in the boot now?
- Not which ones came with the car when it was new. Cars that have had more than one owner often arrive missing the portable charger, or carrying one somebody bought later, and either way it is money. Tell us what is in there and it goes into the number.
- Is the wall box coming off the wall or staying on it?
- Every answer is fine and all of them are worth knowing early. If it went up years ago and stays for whatever replaces this car, we price the car without it. If the house is being sold and the box belongs to the property now, say so and we leave it alone.
- Has it had paint or panel work along the way?
- Years on the road usually come with at least one carpark story. We ask so the inspector is not surprised by it, not to catch you out. Tell us what was repaired and whether it went through insurance, and the photographs on the day show the rest anyway.
However long you have had it
Three things the years do not change
- Being an early one does not put it outside what we buy. The reading and the condition set the number. Nothing about how long ago the car was built decides whether there is one.
- A gap in the history is not something to hide. If you bought it from somebody else, the early part of its life may not be yours to prove. Tell us where your part of the story starts and we work with what is there rather than assuming the worst about the rest.
- You are not being asked to prove anything. Bring what you have and leave the rest. None of this is a document check with a pass mark, and the reading taken in your driveway stands on its own whatever turns up in the glovebox.
Worth answering first
What owners of older ones usually ask
I bought it second hand and I do not have the full service history. Does that stop you?
No. It changes what we can confirm rather than whether we are buying. Tell us which part of its life you can account for, and the reading the inspector takes covers the part paperwork was never going to answer anyway.
Does it matter that it has been serviced away from a Hyundai dealer?
Not on its own. We are looking for a pattern somebody can follow, so a car that went back to the same independent workshop for years reads better to us than one with a different name in every line.
It is one of the older electric cars on the road now. Is it still worth me calling?
Yes, and worth doing before you accept a number from anyone working off the plate and the odometer. The reading is taken at your home or your work, and you are under no obligation once you have heard what it means.
Put the whole history in front of somebody who will read it.
Or call us on 03 9000 0075 and talk it through first.