Key Takeaways
- Maintenance history includes repairs and services done to a vehicle throughout its life.
- Knowing a vehicle’s maintenance history can help you to feel more confident in a used vehicle purchase and to know what to expect with your car.
- If the records are not there it is not the end of the world, and you can still get a great vehicle even though it does not have the entire maintenance history.
- Your maintenance history can often be taken from websites like Carfax or Autocheck, and some physical copies are still found on used cars.
What does a maintenance history include?
The vehicle’s maintenance history hopefully includes all the services and repairs done to your vehicle. It should not just include the dates of the services but the receipts of the services as well. This will help you to rest assured that your car was in good hands with the previous owner and hopefully has been treated very well.
The maintenance history should include more of the services done to the vehicle, such as oil changes, tire replacements, windshield wiper replacements, and general servicing done to the vehicle. It hopefully includes less of the repairs done to the vehicle, as you want to avoid a vehicle that has needed extensive repairs throughout its life. However, getting repairs is common in the life of many great vehicles.
Why do you need to know your car’s maintenance history?
Knowing your car's maintenance history can give you a decent idea of when you will need to pay for more services, when the tires might need to be replaced, and when your next oil change is due. It also gives you an idea of the state of your engine and how long of a life it might have left. Knowing the maintenance history of a vehicle is beneficial because it also lets you know how reliable a vehicle has been throughout its life. You will be able to know whether to expect more parts to bust, or whether you can squeeze another 150,000 miles out of the new-to-you vehicle.
What if the records aren’t available?
Maintenance histories can be beneficial, but they are not the end all be all. A great way to also find out the state of your vehicle is by examining every part of the vehicle, from the undercarriage to under the hood. If you see rust, if it's overly dirty, or holes in the metal you can steer away from that vehicle.
Something you can do as well is use websites like Carfax or Autocheck to see if they have any more details on the vehicle and its services, or have a vin check run to see if the vehicle has been in any accidents. You can always ask your sales associate if the vehicle you’re interested in has a Carfax report available. This history also sometimes can leave out important details, such as accidents so the maintenance history is not a true end all be all. Having a detailed maintenance history is more like the cherry on top of a sundae. The sundae is still great without the cherry, but putting the cherry on top makes everything just a bit better.
Where to get your used car’s maintenance history?
When you come in to purchase your vehicle through us, we can provide the maintenance history oftentimes through Carfax or Autocheck, or if we were given one by the owner with receipts we can also provide that. As mentioned previously you can also run a vin check to see if a vehicle has been in a serious automobile accident.