Is a pink slip enough when buying a car?

No. A pink slip tells you a car met the Transport for NSW safety standards on the day it was inspected. It doesn’t tell you how close it came to failing, how it drives, what has been repaired or what it’s likely to cost you next, which is what a buyer needs to know.

What a pink slip tells a buyer

A pink slip answers one question: did this car meet the Transport for NSW safety standards on the day it was inspected? The examiner works through a fixed list (brakes, steering and suspension, tyres, lights, the windscreen, seatbelts, leaks, rust in the structure) and the car passes or fails. What can fail a pink slip has the whole list.

So you know the car was safe enough to register on that day. You don’t know most of what decides whether it’s worth the asking price.

What it doesn’t tell you

A pass says nothing about how close the car came to failing. Tyres with a little more than the minimum tread pass, and so do brakes that are wearing down but still stop the car well enough. Six months later those can be a bill.

Anything outside the list goes unchecked. The engine’s health, the gearbox, the air conditioning, the history of repairs, whether the panels have been replaced after a crash: none of that is part of a safety check.

How the car drives isn’t tested either. The pink slip’s brake test is a single hard stop, not a drive.

And it isn’t written for you. The report goes to Transport for NSW for the owner’s renewal. It records a pass, or the reasons for a fail, and says nothing about the rest of the car’s condition.

Does the car need a pink slip to be sold?

Not in NSW. If the car has current NSW rego, the buyer transfers it into their name without a safety inspection. The pink slip comes due at the next renewal, if the car is more than five years old.

So a fresh pink slip from the seller isn’t something you need for the sale, and it isn’t a condition report. A pink slip lasts six months from the inspection, which how long a pink slip lasts explains.

What a pre-purchase inspection adds

A pre-purchase inspection starts with the same safety items and keeps going. Ours covers:

• the VIN (vehicle identification number), the compliance plate and the odometer history
• under the bonnet: oil, coolant, belts, hoses and leaks
• brakes, tyres and wheels, steering, suspension and rust underneath
• paint, panels and signs of accident repair
• warning lights, seatbelts and the air conditioning
• a fault code scan of the car’s computer modules, one by one
• a road test, every time

It takes about an hour with the car. You get a written report with photos by email and text, made out to you as the buyer, rating each item and saying what it means. It’s a check of the car on the day. It isn’t a guarantee, and it isn’t a valuation.

Two checks to run yourself

Before you pay for any inspection, two cheap checks can rule a car out. Service NSW’s free registration check shows the rego expiry, the compulsory third party (CTP) insurer and up to three recent yearly odometer readings. A search of the PPSR, the national Personal Property Securities Register, costs a couple of dollars and shows whether there’s money owing on the car or it’s recorded as written off or stolen.

If the odometer readings don’t add up, how to spot a wound-back odometer goes through what to look for. What a pre-purchase inspection finds covers the PPSR and the questions to ask the seller.

Booking one

Get the seller’s OK first, because we inspect the car and take it for a drive. We go to the seller’s address, and our pre-purchase inspection is from $305, including GST.

You can book a pre-purchase inspection and see the price before you pay.