Service history - Why service history is important when selling a car

Selling a car brings a lot of responsibilities for the owner, and providing a service history to convince potential buyers can be one of the most important things you should keep in mind if you want to be transparent.What do you have to take into consideration when you want to sell a car and how do you prepare your car service history? And most importantly, does it make sense to invest in such a report? You might have not asked yourself these questions before, but you should think about them because the answers may be to your advantage.So find out how such a report can help you as a seller.

Table of Contents:

1. Service history and its importance in selling a car

When you want to sell a car and you don’t want to lose money with it, the service history can come to your aid. Thus, if you put yourself in the buyer’s shoes or think about buying another second hand car instead, you’d like to find out the same information.Why finding out the service history of your own car may be in your advantage? Here are just a few reasons:

• you will be different from other sellers on the market, providing verified information about your car;
• you will be able to justify your asking price;
• you will be able to prove that what you write in the ad is true;
• you will be able to differentiate yourself from other dishonest sellers or brokers.

This is all the more important if you want to sell a car that you bought second hand and for which, perhaps at that time, you could not make such checks.If you want to know how to check the history of the car, you should first contact the Romanian Car Registry, where you can find quite a lot of information such as the number of kilometers and the situation of the periodic technical inspections (ITP). You can present these to potential buyers in order to increase your selling probabilities, but also your credibility.Searching for and providing information about the car’s history is the best sign of goodwill as a seller. In this way you can also ask for a higher but fair price, compared to other cars available on the market.If, however, you do not want to go to the Car Registry, there are other ways in order to obtain a detailed report on the car you want to sell, but these involve more costs for you. In addition, the information obtained may not be complete.

2. How to check if the car history is complete

Many people are interested in how to obtain the history of a car, and besides the traditional methods exposed above, there is still a fairly important question that needs to be answered, namely: “Is the report complete or incomplete?”. Here are several options:

• if the car was bought new from Romania, then the service history can be complete;
• if the car bought in Romania had the revisions made in authorized services, then the history will certainly be complete;
• in the case of cars brought from abroad, the history can show the entries in service on the Romanian territory, but also on those from the state of origin;
• also in the case of imported vehicles, a car report can show only the entries in service on the territory of the state of origin or only in Romania.

Service history can be important when you want to sell a car and you want to get the best price on it. In addition, this way you will be able to sell it even to some companies specialized in the resale of used cars.Photo source: Pixabay.com

3. Frequently asked questions about the service history

1. Is it profitable for me as a seller to ask for the car history?

Checking your car history even when you want to sell a small class car is profitable if you want to get the right price and you want to be a fair seller. Car history can be a major factor in order to sell your car much faster than a similar one without a service report. This way you can maximize your chances of selling.

2. Is it expensive to check your car history?

At the Romanian Auto Registry this check is quite cheap, depending on the information you want to get. Still, reports issued by private companies are not very expensive.

3. Does the service history also contain pictures?

In case they were taken, yes, the service history of a car can also contain pictures, especially if the car was involved in accidents. However, in some cases of accidents, the report might contain only a drawing with the damaged parts of the car, instead of pictures.

4. If I don’t have a complete history for a used car I want to sell, can I get the rest of the information?

You can try to look for other information, but it depends a lot on the age of the car, where you have bought it from and the country of origin.