Buying a pre-owned vehicle? Check the history

You are about to spend several thousand dollars to buy the pre-owned vehicle of your dreams. You have planned your budget, driven a lot of vehicles, and now you are ready to buy.

However, one question remains: despite all the fine words of the seller, is this pre-owned vehicle really what it seems? You can never be too cautions. First thing’s first, you need a complete inspection of the vehicle.

The results are in, the inspection has not shown any major problems. Good. The next step is therefore to buy the car correct? Wrong. The next step is to order a complete vehicle history report.

For a few dollars, these few pages of information may save you quite a bit down the road, as well as a few legal troubles you may not have seen coming.

The vehicle history report is delivered by an independent organization. By bringing together a host of databases from sources across North America, you can know almost everything there is to know about the car right away.

The VHR is a timeline of your vehicle and includes everything from insurance claims to service history. It also features a wide range of other useful data including any possible liens still attached to the car. It will tell you if it is used as collateral on another loan that is not yours, how often it was maintained, if it was ever stolen or damaged, how many owners it has had, and if it has been serviced for any possible recalls.

The vehicle history report is always available and it is certainly worth the small investment.

Special thanks to Kingston Toyota Scion for their help with this article.