The eight we answer most often

No. A roadworthy test is a minimum-standards check carried out at a registered testing station on brakes, lights, steering, tyres, glass and a few structural items. It does not look at your cambelt, your gearbox fluid, your aircon condenser or rust that is hidden under sound deadening. A car can pass on the morning and need R30 000 spent on it that afternoon, entirely legally. Treat the certificate as a step in the transfer, and pay separately for an inspection that is on your side.

It is normal and manageable, provided you do it in the right order. The seller asks the bank for a settlement letter, which gives a figure, a reference and a deadline. You pay that figure to the bank directly and the balance to the seller only once the bank confirms the account is settled and releases the documents. Do it on a working morning with both of you present. Never hand the full amount to the seller on a promise that they will settle it later.

We tell clients to hold back R20 000 to R30 000 on an ordinary car in the R150 000 to R250 000 bracket. That typically covers two or four tyres at an indicative R1 700 to R3 200 each, a full service at R3 500 to R6 000, the roadworthy and licensing costs of roughly R750 to R1 600, and a contingency for whatever the first month exposes. If the cambelt is near its interval, add R7 500 to R14 000 on top.

Code 2 means a used vehicle with a normal history. Code 3 means the car was written off by an insurer at some point, repaired and then recoded so it can be registered and used again. Some Code 3 cars are properly rebuilt and perfectly safe; others hide structural repair that nobody would accept if they could see it. Either way the car is worth materially less, resale is harder and some insurers will cover it only on limited terms. Ask the question directly and in writing.

Not at all, and most of the cars we approve have lived here their whole lives. What matters is where the car slept and how it was washed. A garage-kept car with a dry boot and a clean underside is a better buy at 140 000 km than a car with wet carpets at 85 000. Check the sills, the floorpan under the driver's heel, the spring seats, the boot floor and the aircon, and judge the individual car rather than the region.

Both work. A dealer sale carries an implied warranty of quality under consumer protection law, and a dealer who claims used cars are sold entirely voetstoots is overstating their position; get every promise written on the offer to purchase. A private sale is voetstoots and your recourse afterwards is thin, but the price is usually better and the history is often clearer because you are talking to the person who drove it. If you dislike admin, pay the dealer premium.

A pre-purchase inspection is an indicative R1 150, a paperwork and settlement check R760, and the full one-car package R2 250. Travel inside Buffalo City is included and beyond about 60 km we add R5.50 a kilometre. We take nothing from sellers, dealers, finance houses or workshops, and we do not accept a referral fee of any kind. That is the whole reason this site can say what it says.

Yes, and it is a fair part of what we do. Families buying for a parent in East London, or people working away who want a car waiting for them, use the full package: we take the brief, screen the candidates, inspect, drive, give you a negotiating position, attend the bank for the settlement payment and then attend the handover. You will still need to appear in person for the licensing step or appoint somebody properly to do it for you.