A Car Inspection Checklist to Take With You (Australia)

This is the checklist I put together before buying a car in Queensland, pulled out of the main guide to buying a car in Australia so you can screenshot it and take it with you. We're not mechanics, this is the amateur pass: good for spotting obvious disasters, not a substitute for a proper pre purchase mechanical inspection.

Outside

• Walk the whole body in daylight and sight along the panels from an angle, that's how you see ripples from a repair.
• Check rust at wheel arches, door sills and the boot floor, especially on anything that's lived near a beach.
• Run a fridge magnet over the panels: where it doesn't stick, there's filler hiding something.
• Check for windscreen chips.
• Check tyre tread, and whether the wear is even, because uneven wear means alignment or suspension.

Under the bonnet

• Check the oil level and colour. Milky is bad news.
• Look for any wet patches or crust.
• Look at the ground where it's been parked, because fresh oil on concrete is a conversation.

Inside

• Does the odometer match the wear? A 90,000 km car with a worn through driver's seat is telling you something.
• Test every light, both sets of wipers, all the windows, and the aircon. Take the aircon seriously if you're in Queensland.

Driving it

• Listen on start up, watch for smoke.
• Gear changes should be smooth. Jerkiness in an auto is the most expensive noise a car can make.
• Brake hard somewhere safe.
• Get it above 80 km/h if you can, since problems love to hide at low speed.

Paperwork

• Ask for the full service logbook. A complete, in order logbook is the best proxy for a careful previous owner that exists.
• Ask what it drinks, too, because a thirsty engine adds up fast over 20,000 km of road trips.

This is the amateur pass. For the real mechanical check, see the pre purchase inspection section of the main guide, and for what everything actually costs, see what buying a car in Australia really costs.