Behind this site
This is a private site, written and paid for by two people who inspect cars for a living on the Border and up the Wild Coast side. It exists because we got tired of giving the same advice twice a day on the phone.
A high lookout over the Buffalo River mouth with cars parked along the verge.
The work came first and the website came second. Most of what is written here started as notes scribbled on the back of an inspection sheet in a yard in Amalinda or at a workshop lift in Berlin, then repeated to the next buyer who phoned. Putting it in order on a page was easier than saying it again.
Nothing on this site is paid for by anybody who sells cars. No dealer, no finance house, no workshop, no tyre fitment centre and no insurer has put a cent into it or had a word of input. There is no advertising, there are no sponsored chapters and there is no referral arrangement, which is why we can write that a particular kind of car is a poor buy in this part of the country without checking with anyone first.
We also write about motor shows, concours displays, touring, prestige test drives and car hire, because all of them feed the same decision. A show hall is where you measure seats. A concours display is where your eye learns what correct bodywork looks like. A weekend hire car is the cheapest way to find out whether a body style suits your back. A long tour is the only honest test of a purchase.
What you will not find here is a price guide that pretends to be gospel, a list of models ranked by anything, or a claim to be an authority. Every figure in rand is marked indicative because workshop rates in Buffalo City vary widely and a written quote always beats a number on a page. If you think something here is wrong, phone and say so; we have changed chapters because a reader knew more about a particular gearbox than we did.
Three things we hold to
01
Independent, and not quietly
Independence is cheap to claim and expensive to keep. Ours costs us the referral income that most people in this trade take for granted, and we think that is the right trade.
02
Specific over impressive
A kilometre figure, a service interval, a boot capacity, a rand range or a road by name. If a sentence here would read the same in Gauteng or in Ireland, it should not be here at all.
03
Say the unwelcome thing
Plenty of buyers want to be told the car they have already fallen for is fine. Our job is to say when it is not, in plain words, before the money moves.
What this site is not
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Not a dealership, a broker or an agent. We never sell a car and never earn anything on one.
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Not a finance or insurance adviser. We will tell you what insurers commonly ask for; the cover itself is between you and them.
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Not a workshop. We inspect and report, and when a car needs work we point you at people who do it properly.
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Not a legal service. On paperwork we describe the usual process and the order of payment; for a dispute you need a proper attorney.
A restored car on a concours lawn with the bonnet raised for inspection.
Tell us about the car you are looking at
Send the kilometres, the asking price, the body style and where the car has lived, and we will tell you on the phone whether it is worth an inspection. That conversation is free, and it has talked people out of appointments more than once.