A used car is a used car salesperson with a tailgate. The difference is the whole pitch — the photos flatter, the ride-home story’s warm, and the money is in your hand before anyone’s proven anything. This checklist is the counterweight: every line is something the car either passes or fails in front of you, in five minutes, with no tools.
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Answer as you stand at the car. Runs entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded, stored, or sent anywhere, not even to us.
Do all three VINs match the title — exactly?
Is there a clean title in the seller's hand today?
Have you looked the VIN up for open recalls?
Any service records at all — receipts, oil stickers, a folder?
First cold start: does it fire right, idle steady, and go quiet?
Any smoke from the tailpipe at startup — blue, or thick white?
Does the dash do its full bulb-check, and then go dark?
Can you scan it with a loaner reader before you buy?
Same paint everywhere? Even gaps, no overspray?
Hood and fender bolts: factory paint marks intact?
Oil and coolant: clean, or mayonnaise and glitter?
Tires: matching brand, and even wear across each tread?
Does it shift Reverse to Drive to Park smoothly from a COLD start?
From 30 mph: does it stop straight, quiet, and pulsing-free?
On a safe empty road: does a drone change when you swerve?
After the drive: steady idle at a stop, and a clean HOT restart?
Did you work EVERY switch? A/C, heat, windows, wipers, signals, radio?
Airbag lamp behavior normal, and no re-padded dash or steering wheel?
Sniff test: musty carpet, damp under mats, water lines in the footwells?
KEEP CHECKING · risk score 0 · 0/19 checked
Mark what you find at the car and this verdict builds itself. Deal-enders first: a VIN that doesn't match the title, a title you can't see, or an airbag story that doesn't add up.
Honesty note: this checklist catches what a car shows on the surface. It cannot see freeze-frame fault data, compression numbers, or crash history hiding under good paint.A clean result is an argument for the $200 inspection, not a replacement for it.
Insist the engine hasn't been run in an hour. If it's warm, the cold-start checks are void — come back or ask questions that cost the seller time.
Paperwork before the hood, hood before the drive. A bad title isn't worth a good-sounding engine, and a painted bay changes what every later check means.
A clean sheet is an argument for the inspection. A flagged sheet is the inspection agenda, written for you, free.
You need to check the ones that end deals for free: VIN against title, the title in the seller's hand, a true cold start, and the airbag lamp doing its self-test. Those four take two minutes and catch the disasters. The rest of the list tells you what to make the paid inspection look at hardest.
Almost every expensive fault is loudest when the engine is cold and quietest when it's warm. A seller who runs the engine before you arrive has arranged the audition. Insisting on an untouched cold start — and a hot restart at the end of the drive — is the single highest-value move on the checklist, and it costs nothing.
An honest seller doesn't mind — a $10 scan either proves their story or saves them the awkward call when the car comes back. A seller who refuses to let you scan has answered your question with their behavior. Keep the $25 phone reader: you can also use it on the car a month later, at your house, with a mechanic watching over your shoulder.
A clean checklist means the surfaces are honest. It can't read freeze-frame fault data, compression numbers, leak-down, or what the last accident actually did under the filler. For a private-party car you're writing four figures for, the $200 inspection is the cheapest insurance you'll ever buy — and our guarantee covers the other half: If we can't find the root cause, you don't pay the diagnostic fee. Period.
If it's inside our service area, yes — we meet the car at the seller's driveway, and a trip fee beyond the flat-rate radius is quoted before we show up (check it by ZIP on the trip-fee page). Farther out, we'll still help remotely: run the codes you pull, decode the scan results, and tell you what to ask the local inspector to double-check.
No. The checklist scores on your device — no account, no email, no server call. We don't see what you flagged or what car you're looking at. Close the tab and it never existed.
The checklist is the first pass. These are the rest: