Used cars were expensive, are expensive, and are becoming increasingly expensive. If you are about to spend money on a used car, you want to be sure that it is in good condition. You can have a purchase inspection carried out, but is that useful?
A typical used car in the Netherlands should fetch around €24,000. An average net annual income – excluding holiday pay – is just over €34,000. If you compare these two amounts, you immediately know that a second-hand car costs a substantial part of an annual salary. In other words: it’s not trivial. Anyone seriously considering spending so much money does not rush into it. We can all cast a worried glance under the bonnet, and a quasi-expert kick against the tires is also a small effort, but as a layman, you won’t get much wiser from it. Does a purchase inspection offer a solution?
On the road with a purchase inspector: how he works
To find the answer to that question, we go out with Abdellah El Habti, who, as an independent purchase inspector in his company Pro Aankoopkeuringen, performs these kinds of inspections almost daily. He takes us to Veen in North Brabant, where a 2016 Peugeot 308 SW 1.2 PureTech automatic, with 111,000 kilometers on the clock, is for sale. Abdellah was called in by a customer who had set his sights on the French station wagon. The customer wants to know if the Peugeot is really worth its price tag of €11,400. El Habti explains what his work details, and for which services his client pays him an amount of €250. “My client has seen the car and would like to buy it, but he also wants certainty. I check the overall optical and technical condition of the used car for him. Based on what I see, I can tell my client whether the car is too expensive or fairly priced, and advise him to buy the car or leave it.”
As a seller, ‘stand behind your product’
Arrived in Veen, the Peugeot gleams in the parking lot of the selling car dealership. Seller Niels den Dekker has no problem with the Peugeot being subjected to a purchase inspection: “You have to stand behind your product, and we do. Our cars are right, but if a purchase inspection can help a customer overcome the threshold to purchase, then we are naturally open to that.”
Vital functions in order: OBD reader included with purchase inspection
Meanwhile, El Habti has already concluded that the Peugeot makes an excellent first impression: beautiful alloy wheels, no visible color difference, and certainly no dents. But, El Habti also knows, a good start is half the battle. And he is not about half measures. El Habti connects his OBD reader, which tells him how the Peugeot feels inside. Some small, temporary malfunctions appear on his screen, but El Habti concludes that the vital functions of the Peugeot are in order. The engine starts flawlessly, runs without extraneous noises, leaks no oil or coolant anywhere, and shows no strange vibrations. It runs, to stay in car salesperson’s jargon, like a dream. The beginning is promising.
Purchase inspection can be done by independent or large parties
Abdellah el Habti is independently active in purchase inspections, but he is far from the only one who practices this profession. You can hire a solo practitioner, but also a large party such as Vakgarage, Mijn Autocoach, or Dekra. Depending on how extensive the inspection is, you should expect a price between €150 and €350. For that amount, as a consumer – as El Habti already says – you mainly buy certainty. But how useful is that if something like a warranty also exists? Bovag spokesperson Paul de Waal knows the answer to that question: “The Bovag Warranty guarantees that defects that occur within 12 months will be repaired free of charge. It is and always remains difficult to look twelve months ahead, so a purchase inspection remains a snapshot from which you usually cannot derive rights.”
Purchase inspection fits the trend of wanting to know what you’re buying beforehand
De Waal emphasizes that parties like Vakgarage also explicitly state this in their terms and conditions. “That being said: a purchase inspection can be useful if you want to invoke the so-called ‘statutory warranty’, the conformity rules. If you have had a purchase inspection carried out, especially when buying an older car, you have probably fulfilled the buyer’s duty of investigation. This gives you extra certainty, and thus the purchase inspection fits the trend that buyers want to know more than ever beforehand what they are buying and what they are getting into. With a purchase inspection, you gain more insight into the history of a car in any case. Bovag Warranty is a certainty after the fact, while a purchase inspection can provide certainty beforehand.”
MOT not a guarantee
Just like a purchase inspection, the MOT (APK in Dutch) inspection, on which consumers sometimes blindly rely, is a snapshot. The RDW does not carry out purchase inspections but is responsible for the MOT. “A valid MOT does not guarantee that a car will remain safe to drive for the rest of the year and that no maintenance will be needed that year,” emphasizes representatives Thérèse de Vroomen. “Regular checks and maintenance always remain important.”
On the RDW website, there are various tips for consumers who want to buy a used car. For example, the service states that it is useful to request a vehicle report, but it is also strongly advised to check the mileage and maintenance history. These two crucial points are part of every purchase inspection. But that you don’t know everything with that alone, El Habti can confirm. Vakgarage entrepreneur Patrick Turfboer – who performs many purchase inspections every year – could also write a book about it if necessary. That book would at least make it clear that the €150 you pay at a Vakgarage for a purchase inspection is rarely wasted money.
‘Don’t too easily write off a car as faulty’
“It’s very easy to ‘write off’ a car as faulty during an inspection,” Turfboer begins. “But a used car can sweat a bit, or, for example, have dried-out tires. As long as such things are appropriate for the age of the car, that doesn’t immediately have to disqualify the car or the seller. Wear and tear also does not fall under warranty. But sometimes you come across things that a buyer himself would not quickly discover, and which do say something about a car or the party selling it.”
Error codes deleted? Something is being hidden!
According to Turfboer, error codes don’t immediately have to mean anything either, but it changes when an error code turns out to have been recently deleted. “It has regularly happened that I connect my OBD reader and then see that a few error codes were deleted 30 minutes before the inspection. Then you can suspect that a selling party wants to hide something.”
Turfboer once told of a customer who came to the workshop who had bought a Peugeot 2008 whose oil pressure light came on after a short time. “That turned out to be a problem with the timing belt, and we were able to determine that the interval in the onboard computer had been adjusted. That happened in December; the customer had bought the car in February. So the timing belt should actually have been replaced, but the customer didn’t know that. A purchase inspection could have provided a solution there. At the same time, it is true that you often see major technical defects in the first month. So you can also choose to buy a car with a Bovag Warranty and then have it inspected at the end of the warranty period. We often see that happening now.”
Overlooking damage if you don’t know where to look
During a purchase inspection, the technical condition of the car is scrutinized, but it is also checked whether a car has ever sustained damage. This is an important point, Turfboer believes: “If you don’t know what to look for, you can overlook poorly repaired damage, and we also notice that this happens to customers. Recently, a Seat Ibiza was offered to us for a purchase inspection. At first glance, the Ibiza looked fine. But when I pulled on the nose beam, the entire front moved back and forth. We naturally advised that customer to leave that car. In such situations, you see a purchase inspection make a difference.”
This 308 had its bonnet painted and a kink in the sill
And lo and behold, in Veen, El Habti also discovers – admittedly significantly smaller – damage to the Peugeot 308. He sees that the bonnet was once painted, and when he puts the car on the lift, he sees a slight kink in the sill near the right front wheel. “It was probably jacked up incorrectly once. This is typically the kind of damage you don’t see if you don’t put a car on a lift. Although it doesn’t cause any further harm, many people find it disturbing damage, which is also not cheap to repair.”
Meanwhile, El Habti also leafed through the Peugeot’s maintenance booklet, and something caught his eye: “It needed a major service, and the timing belt should also have been replaced.” The test drive revealed no further suspicious things. The Peugeot behaved exemplarily: it tracked neatly, braked powerfully, didn’t vibrate, and simply drove perfectly well.
Clarification on missing timing belt replacement
Back in Veen, seller Den Dekker shows that the major service was indeed performed and that the timing belt was also replaced neatly on time, only the note in the maintenance booklet is missing. “That has been clearly resolved,” says El Habti. “But because of the damage, I find the price of this car a bit too high. With this damage, I would say it should cost a maximum of €10,000. My client can take that advice into his negotiation, but it doesn’t mean I advise against buying this car. Otherwise, it is a neat Peugeot, which I think can last for many more years.”
Not purchased after all
Later, El Habti reports that his client, based on the purchase inspection, decided not to purchase the car after all. “The damages were very disappointing to him. They had not caught his eye when he inspected the car himself. So he was glad that I had noticed them. For him, it was a reason not to buy the Peugeot 308 SW.”
El Habti looks back on the Peugeot inspection with a good feeling: “It’s nice that this company just lets me do my work and is transparent. That’s sometimes different; recently I had to inspect an expensive Audi RS6, but the seller refused to let me take a test drive. He insisted that someone accompany me. Afterwards, there turned out to be nothing wrong with the Audi, but at such a moment, I don’t feel welcome.”
Test drive ended in a cloud of smoke
It once happened to him that a test drive with a Fiat 500 ended in a cloud of smoke, with a puddle of coolant on the ground. “The seller was incredibly angry, said it was my fault, and wanted me to pay, while it later turned out that the water pump and thermostat housing were broken. These are known problems with that car. Sometimes you just experience strange things.”
Peace of mind
According to El Habti, the phenomenon of purchase inspection still seems relatively unknown to buyers, but also to sellers, and that surprises him. “Of course, I’m biased, but for people buying a house, a structural inspection is also a matter of course, isn’t it? A house is the biggest expense you make in your life, but buying a car is also one of the biggest costs in a person’s life. People save for a car for a long time, or get into debt for it.”
El Habti firmly believes that purchase inspections deserve more attention. “Although I also subscribe to the idea that an inspection is a snapshot and we cannot look inside the engine, I dare to state that with a purchase inspection, you always learn something about the quality of the car you want to buy. That is always good for your peace of mind.”
With a warranty, you can cure a lot of technical misery, but prevention can also be a choice, and therein lies the strength of the purchase inspection, according to El Habti. “Everyone knows that a warranty claim can sometimes be a lengthy and frustrating process, which a purchase inspection can help prevent. You buy a piece of peace of mind, and what that is worth, every consumer can decide for themselves. It is never wrong to know that such a piece of peace of mind is available in various forms, for anyone who needs it.”