Selling from Bendigo, the car stays where it is and the inspector comes to it.
Out this way the first question is almost never what the car is worth. It is whether anybody is actually going to turn up and look at it.
Somebody does, and the visit is arranged rather than squeezed in, so the reading, the signing and the money all belong to the same afternoon.
- The inspector comes to you
- Australia wide
- Finance settled directly
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The visit
Everything that would cost you a second appointment gets settled first
A day out here is not a thing anybody can casually run again, so the work that turns it into one visit happens on the phone, before the car has been seen at all.
Closer in, looking at a car is a small thing. Somebody is nearby anyway, they stop past on the way to something else, and if the second key turns out to be in a drawer at work it can be picked up next Tuesday. None of that holds from here and every seller out this way knows it long before we do. It is why the first call so often opens with a question about us rather than about the car. Are you actually coming, or is this the part where it goes quiet?
So the appointment is planned instead of slotted in. Everything that could send somebody back for a second run gets dealt with beforehand: who has to sign and whether they will be there, what is owed and to whom, where the car will be standing and whether anything has to be moved to get at it. None of that is paperwork for its own sake. It is the difference between a day that ends with the car sold and a day that ends with another date in the calendar. What happens once somebody is actually standing in front of the car is a separate matter, and it is set out in full on the page about the inspection itself, because that part is the same wherever you live.
One more thing, and it usually gets treated as small talk when it is really information. A drive that has to be thought about in advance is a drive that gets remembered afterwards. If you can say what the car actually does between charges, and where you would stop if you had to, that is worth more to us than anything a listing could have said about it. It is the sort of thing you only end up knowing because the drive had to be planned in the first place.
Before anybody sets off
What we ask about a car we are travelling to
Not one of these decides whether we are coming. Each one decides how much of the day is already settled by the time somebody arrives.
- Where exactly will the car be standing, and can it be got at?
- A driveway, a shed, a gate off a dirt track, the carpark at your work. All of it is fine and none of it is unusual. What is worth saying beforehand is whether it is boxed in behind something else, whether a gate needs unlocking, or whether the pin a map drops for your address lands somewhere other than the front of the property. Around Bendigo that last one is the difference between an appointment and a wasted afternoon.
- Is everyone whose name is on the papers going to be there?
- This is the one that most often turns a finished sale into another appointment. A second name on the registration, a car held in a business, an owner working away for the week. Said on the first call, the signing gets arranged around it. Said on the day, there is very little anybody can do about it from where they are standing.
- If there is money owing, do you know who it is owing to?
- The name of the lender is usually enough to get started, because the figure itself is ours to go and get rather than yours to clear first. Having that in motion before anybody travels is what keeps the settlement and the handover inside the same visit instead of a fortnight apart.
- Has it spent much of its life on unsealed roads?
- Say so if it has. It points the inspector at the underside, the paint and the tyres rather than at nothing in particular, and a car that has done that kind of work is not being marked down for it. What does cost you is the version where nobody mentions it and the reason for what turns up has to be guessed at.
- On a longer trip, what do you actually do about charging?
- Whether it goes on overnight at home and that covers everything, whether you top it up part way, or whether it charges once you have arrived. A trip that has to be planned is usually one you can describe properly, and all of that tells us how the car has really been used. There is no answer that costs you anything and no right one to give.
Getting to the car
Three things that hold from this far out
- The driving is ours. The inspector comes to where the car is, at home or at work. Nobody asks you to give up a day and make the run yourself, and the car does not move anywhere until it is sold.
- One visit is the plan, which is why we ask so much first. The second key, the service book, whoever has to put their name on it. Getting all of that into one place beforehand is what lets the reading, the contract and the transfer happen while somebody is still there with you.
- A payout is ours to chase, not yours to clear. Tell us who the finance is with on the first call. We deal with them ourselves, a car loan or a novated lease either way, and if what is owed comes to more than the car is worth, that gap is put in writing and read by you before anything is signed.
We work out of 374 Settlement Rd, Thomastown VIC 3074. The inspector comes to you, which is the part that matters from here.
Fair enough to ask
Three this usually raises
Do you actually come out this far, or does it go quiet once I say where I am?
We do come to Bendigo. The inspector travels to where the car is and the visit is booked as its own appointment rather than fitted around something closer to home. If there were ever a reason we could not get to you, you would hear that on the first call instead of waiting to find out.
Can it really all be finished in the one visit?
That is what the questions on the phone are for. With the signing arranged and the payout figure already moving, the reading, the contract and the transfer belong to the same afternoon. If something genuinely turns out to be missing, what waits is that one thing rather than the sale.
I still need the car until it is sold. Is that a problem?
No, and it is worth saying plainly because not everybody has a second car to fall back on. Nothing in this asks you to be without it early. It stays where it is and it stays yours until the contract is signed, and if there is finance on it the payout goes to the financier rather than through you.
Start it from where you are, and let the driving be ours.
Or call us on 03 9000 0075 and talk it through first.