If it has been working for a living in Dandenong, that is history, not damage.
If your car has been earning its keep, it does a shift, it carries somebody else's kilometres, and more than one person may have a key to it.
That is a history to read rather than a reason to open lower, and the only person who actually has it is you.
- Or bring it to Thomastown
- Australia wide
- Finance settled directly
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Cars that work
Leaving out what the car has been doing is the part that costs you
The wear turns up in the inspection whatever anybody was told beforehand. What changes is whether there is a reason attached to it.
Think about where the car actually sits in the middle of a working day. Not in a driveway. It is nosed in at a roller door with the boot open, or across a yard where the trucks turn, or in a staff carpark behind a gate that gets locked at knock off, and it goes home at night to a street of houses with the tools still in the back. In Dandenong a street of houses can back onto a yard, so none of that is unusual here.
Then the day comes to sell it, and all of that gets tidied up before anybody says it out loud. The car becomes a quiet second car that mostly sat in a driveway, while the seat bolster, the pedal rubbers and the marks in the boot are describing a different life altogether. Nobody is being dishonest exactly. Everybody has been told at some point that a car which has worked is worth less, so the work gets left out and the seller hopes it goes unnoticed. The trouble is that the inspection happens regardless, and what is left is wear with no account attached, which is the worst possible version of the same set of facts.
Told properly it is just a history, and histories are readable. A car doing steady runs between the same few places has lived a different life from one that has been stopping and starting all day with a different driver each week, and the marks they leave are not the same marks. You are the only person who can say which of those yours has been. Everything you know about it, the year it got busy, the job it was bought for, the run it does now, is information somebody would otherwise have to infer from a seat and a set of tyres.
The other thing about a car that earns is that it is often not a full electric one at all. Plenty are hybrids, and plenty more are mild hybrids belonging to somebody who has never once thought of the car as electrified. Both are on our list and neither is treated as an afterthought when the number gets built. If yours is one of the ones that never gets plugged in, the case for hybrids and mild hybrids is made at length on the Hyundai page, and it holds whatever badge happens to be on the boot of yours.
What we want to know
What we ask about a working car in Dandenong
None of them decides whether we are buying. Each one decides what the inspector is looking for and what is already accounted for before anybody arrives.
- Has it been used for work, and what kind of work?
- Rideshare, deliveries, a run between sites, carrying tools and stock, or nothing of the sort. Whatever the answer, it changes what the inspector expects rather than whether we are interested. The reason to say it on the first call is simple. Wear with a reason attached reads differently from wear somebody has to guess the cause of, and the guess is never generous.
- Is it in your name or a business name, and who can sign for it?
- A car held by a company or a trust is completely ordinary. It just means the person able to sign for the business has to be the one who signs. Knowing which it is decides what we ask you to have with you, and it is the single thing most likely to hold up a handover that was otherwise finished.
- Is it more than one person's car?
- Two drivers on different shifts, a partner who does the long runs, whoever is rostered on that week. It is worth knowing because different habits leave different marks, and because on a shared car the second key and the service book are usually with somebody who is not you. If another driver knows it better than you do, have them on the call.
- Who has been servicing it, and can any of that be shown?
- If a car has to be available every day, the servicing tends to be the thing that does not get put off. That is worth proving rather than mentioning. An invoice from a workshop counts exactly as much as a stamp in a book, and a folder of them is one of the few things that moves a number in your favour. Anything that cannot be shown has to be treated as something you told us, which is not the same thing.
- Is there a payout on it, and is the finance in the business name?
- A car loan, a novated lease through an employer, or a facility the business uses. We go to the financier directly whichever it is. What matters at this end is hearing it early, because the details needed are not always the same ones, and chasing them afterwards is what turns a finished afternoon into a week of phone calls.
Getting to the car
Three things a working car does not change
- Work is not a strike against it. What the car has been doing changes what gets looked at and asked about. It does not change whether we are buying, and it is not a reason to open low before anybody has stood in front of it.
- Where it already sits is a normal place to do this. The inspector comes to the car, at home or at work, so it does not have to come off the road for a morning to get sold. If it lives at a job site between runs, or in a staff carpark, that is fine too.
- The payout is ours to sort out. Whoever the finance sits with, an employer, a bank or a lender the business uses, we settle it with them directly. If the amount owing lands above what the car is worth, you see that difference written down before you sign anything.
We work out of 374 Settlement Rd, Thomastown VIC 3074. The inspector comes to you, and if you would rather bring the car to us instead, you are welcome to.
Worth asking
Three that come up on a car like this
It has been doing deliveries. Are you still going to want it?
Yes. What the car has been doing changes what the inspector expects to find and which questions get asked first. It does not change whether there is an offer. Say it on the first call and what comes back has already taken it into account, which is far better than a number that has to move later.
The car is in the business name. Does that complicate things?
It changes who signs and which details we ask you for, and that is genuinely the whole of it. Tell us early so the person who can sign for the business is there when the contract goes on your phone. Anything on the tax side of your own books stays between you and your accountant.
Mine is a hybrid rather than electric. Is it really on your list?
It is, and so is a mild hybrid. They are valued the same way as the cars that only ever plug in. The battery still gets read, it just sits alongside the history of the engine instead of carrying the whole number by itself.
Tell us what the car has been doing, and let it count as history.
Or call us on 03 9000 0075 and talk it through first.