Our process
Five steps, in this order, every time. The order is the point: by the time anybody talks about price, the car has either earned the conversation or it has not.
Five steps, in order
The brief
A conversation about your route, your kilometres a month, your passengers, your towing, your budget and your body. Hips, knees and backs matter here as much as rand. We write down what the car has to do before we look at a single advert, because a brief written afterwards is just a justification.
Shortlist and screening
Body styles and drivetrains, never badges. We check parts availability in the Border region, the known weak points of each candidate, and what insurers tend to ask for. Then we screen the actual cars on offer: adverts with no service history, no kilometre figure or a seller who will not confirm the titleholder get cut before anybody drives anywhere.
Cold inspection in daylight
Two to three hours with the car cold and the sun up. Body shell and underside first, with a torch and a paint gauge. Then fluids, electrics, tyre dates read off the sidewall, and a cold start with the radio off. We write a repair budget, not a verdict, so you can see what the car needs and decide for yourself.
A drive that uses real roads
Town traffic, a sustained fifteen minutes at highway speed on the N2, a long uphill pull in a high gear, broken tar, gravel if the car will see it, and one firm stop from 100 km/h. We ride with you and keep quiet until the end, then we compare notes before you speak to the seller.
Paperwork, payment order and handover
Registration certificate against the body numbers, titleholder position, settlement letter, roadworthy, licence expiry and the change-of-ownership forms. We write down the payment sequence, attend the bank with you if you want it, and go to the handover to recheck the numbers, the keys, the tools and the spare wheel before money moves.
We will decline a job. If a seller insists on a warm engine, refuses a lift, will not produce identification or will not wait for a police clearance on a car with suspect numbers, there is nothing useful for us to inspect and we will say so and charge you nothing.
Keys, a service book and a registration certificate laid out on a desk at handover.
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.