When buying or selling a used car, having maintenance records is supremely important. It gives prospective buyers peace of mind knowing the car they’re about to purchase has been taken care of, and gives sellers the edge in price negotiations, because they can prove the car isn’t a huge hunk of neglected junk.
Of course, everyone is different when it comes to caring about maintenance. There are people in my life who won’t buy anything without seeing a thick stack of service records in the glovebox, even if the car looks and drives like new. At the same time, some people couldn’t care less about a bunch of fancy-looking documents accompanying the car, and assess it purely on how it runs and drives in the moment.
Most people, I assume, lie somewhere in between. Maintenance records certainly matter, but how much do they matter? Your bar for missing maintenance or repair items might be a lot higher if, say, you were a mechanic who planned to work on your own car than, say, a mom of three who just wants to make sure you have something reliable to get from A to B.
That leads me to today’s question:
What’s The Least Amount Of Maintenance History You’d Be Okay With When Buying a Used Car?
For me, it really all depends. When I think about buying a car, I consider it a big balancing act. If I’m paying a bunch of money, I want to know it’s been taken care of, so I’d expect at least some maintenance history, with the seller having addressed any major problems (or adjusted their price to reflect they haven’t addressed said problems).
On the other hand, if I’m paying $2,500 beater, it’s not reasonable to expect the seller to have a binder full of maintenance records going back to when the car was new. Usually, when I’m buying something that cheap, I don’t even ask about maintenance records—I usually just judge the car on vibes alone.
Where it gets murkier is in the middle. Let’s say I come across a car that’s sort of a good deal, but not a great deal. This is when maintenance records might actually sway my decision to buy a car. From there, it varies from car to car, depending on whether the car I’m buying has some catastrophic problem that, if left unaddressed, will cause some major damage (rod bearings for the E90-generation BMW M3 or the IMS bearing for 986-generation Porsche Boxster come to mind as widely known examples of this).
I want to know your thoughts. What’s the least amount of maintenance history you’d be willing to accept when buying a used car?
Top graphic image: Brian Silvestro
The answer to this question is heavily dependent on how much money I am spending!
In my 30 years of buying cars, I have had exactly one come with a maintenance history. It’s not something that really comes up unless you’re talking about some kind of collector’s car. I keep records on all my cars, but without fail, everyone I’ve sold them to has said, “Nah, I don’t need those.” So I stopped even offering.
I almost never end up with a maintenance history. I give it a once-over and look for signs of neglect and adjust my offer accordingly – any receipts are just a bonus. Most people just don’t keep those records anymore; the most I get is “the dealer has everything in their computer”.
It depends on so many factors. Price, age, what am I going to use the car for, how reliable is that car generally, how easy is it to work on that car, parts availability, etc.
Two weeks ago I traded in my Fiesta ST for a 19 Volvo S60 T6. Because this is a daily driver and I do have places to be, service history played a big part in me making my decision. The Volvo had consistent service history from the local Volvo dealer since new and that played a big part in getting me to go through with the deal.
However if it’s something older I’m picking up as a just for fun second car, I’m much more lenient and would more go by the condition of the car when I go to look at it. Finding anything 20+ years old with consistent, documented service history is the exception not the rule so I feel like you kind of need to make your own call when you get into that realm.
I mostly shop the low end of the market where I don’t expect any. I’m happy if I get the owners manual.
Car with the most maintenance records was a 58 Austin Healey from a bankruptcy auction. Inch thick folder mostly of towing receipts 🙂 It’s quite possible the car caused the bankruptcy.
Does a valid title count as maintenance history? I usually want to see one of those.
Usually.
Lol what maintenance history?
On second thought maybe I should have cared more about this since my Evo had to be picked up by a flatbed this morning. Whoops…
I once bought an e36 M3 with zero maintenance records. The fact that it was a good price and the only clean example within a 4 hour drive of either KC or STL, is what got me to go look at it. (I actually purchased it for my uncle, but he sent me the $ and trusted my judgement.)
What I found was an incredibly well-kept vehicle owned by a with enough equipment in his garage to run a mechanics shop. Obviously, this was an incredibly one-off situation, but it worked out very well for us. I still miss that car (totaled by a teen driver).
In the world of shitbox enthusiasts, maintenance history is a foreign language. I’ve never bought a vehicle with any sort of maintenance history outside of my ‘96 K1500, which the PO recorded meticulously in a journal in the glovebox. A couple vehicles I’ve bought I never even had a chance to hear them run, like the partially-disassembled ‘06 Mini my daughter and I bought last summer as her first project car. I suppose that’s a risky strategy, but considering my price point is generally under $1000, it’s not a gigantic gamble.
I have often bought used cars with absolutely NO maintenance history… nothing… nada… nichts.
But then again, those were sub-$5000 beaters. And I would do my own inspection on those. And if there was no maintenance documentation, then I would assume all the critical maintenance like oil changes, coolant changes and timing belts needed to be done.
Having said that, if I bought something expensive like a Porsche or Ferrari, I’m not gonna buy one of those without a full maintenance history unless I’m intentionally buying a restoration project for cheap.
So my expectations for maintenance history start from “nothing” for a cheap beater to “need full history” for expensive cars that are expensive to fix/maintain.
Before CarFax, et. al., used cars sold at dealerships came with NO maintenance history. You might get lucky with a private party sale having a wad of receipts in the glove box, or there could be nothing.
Maybe 0.3% of OCD car owners kept fastidious maintenance records. Lucky was the used-car shopper who found cars like that.
I’ve been ok with none since 1995 so that wont change. I think its more for some hell hole maintenance Ferrari or someone that is not a ‘car person’ so that’s really important to them.
Very much depends on the car, how long I’m keeping it, and how much I’ll depend on it. When I bought a beater truck a few years ago all I did was start it up and drive it around a little, later on I sent an oil sample to Blackstone to make sure the engine wasn’t eating itself too badly.
My 928 came with an inch-thick folio of receipts going back pretty much as long as the PO had owned it, which lined up with the transfer dates in the Carfax. We also spent ~45 minutes on the test drive, started from cold, mixing city and highway miles. It was a gamble since I none of the three local Porsche shops I called would do a presale inspection for it, but it paid off.
“none of the three local Porsche shops I called would do a presale inspection for it”
Why wouldn’t they do that? Don’t they like making money?
One of them told me they were tired of dealing with people finding out how ruinously expensive 928s can be to service at a shop. They’d had enough of customers expecting costs to be similar to the 924/944/968, because watercooled and transaxle layout, and discovering that the first clean-sheet Porsche design had lots of rare and expensive parts.
There’s a point there, my local shop quoted me almost $5k for a timing belt and waterpump because they didn’t want the car in a bay while a tech rebuilt the tensioner. They’d rather quote $1750 to replace it than $250 in parts and labor to rebuild it per the workshop manual.
At that point I accepted that I’d be wrenching on it myself to keep it running, and probably sell it when I get too old to do that.
Ah, I see.
Yeah for a car like the 928, you absolutely have to do at least some of your own wrenching and parts sourcing/repair to keep the maintenance/repair costs from getting crazy.
“They’d rather quote $1750 to replace it than $250 in parts and labor to rebuild it per the workshop manual.”
I’ve often gone to mechanics saying “please replace x part… and the part you need is in the front seat. Please leave the old part in the same spot.”
And with something like a 928, you’ll probably have to build your own mini-warehouse of parts as getting some of them isn’t fast or easy.
I was planning to do a manual swap and figured I’d find a nice-condition early automatic car, since those are much more common. All the factory guts from somebody’s racecar project came up for sale at a good price, so I grabbed them and stored them.
By the time I was ready to look seriously, a nice condition late GT came up, and I bought that. The parts deal meant I have some common parts that will fit (glass, doors, hood and hatch) but also a complete drivetrain, suspension bits, bumper caps, etc. that won’t.
Some day I’ll make an account on rennlist and see if anybody wants the early parts.
My Porsche tale of woe – I brought a 944 from a small dealer to a local import mechanic. He charged me $200 (30 years ago) but then admitted that all he did was call up the dealer and chat about the car. All I got for the money was the chance to see it up on the lift. Never been back and have just trusted my instincts since. No trust.
So with my past two used car purchases I had differing levels in information. With my 03 Civic I had none, but also it was like $1,800 and I knew I was capable of fixing anything wrong with it. With my 13 Civic Si I got a Carfax, and a service report; and had a back and forth with the service manager before I agreed to buy it.
I bought a VW Squareback that was abandoned in an industrial lot for nearly 2 decades that was full of rodent droppings and had a brake drum so seized it had to be forklifted onto the uhaul trailer, so I’m not sure I deserve to have an opinion here.
But did you require the service records? 😉
The last used car I bought had none, so I guess none.
It had 2000 miles, so I didn’t expect much, but the precedent was set.
Depends on the price of the vehicle and reliability track record. Most vehicles I have purchased in recent years had no maintenance records because I’m willing to gamble.
A couple of years ago I purchased 2004 Sequoia with 250K miles and no maintenance records, including the timing belt, for $4500. The 2UZ-FE engine is legendary for reliability, so I popped the timing cover off to look at the belt (looks fine), did a bunch of maintenance work, and I have since driven it thousands of miles, including off roading and towing my race car.
…I don’t think I’ve ever bought a car with its maintenance history. What’s it like?
History says I’ll buy a shitbox with zero records and get burned on it.
And then I’ll do it again.
Aaaand again.
One day I’ll learn.
Whats the latest on the Excursion, pull the trigger yet??
Put the insurance on it yesterday, going tomorrow to pick up and register it.
THAT one has records, including for the engine/trans rebuild 76k kms ago.
Congrats! Very cool truck indeed, so roomy and versatile, what color? I believe you already said 5.4L on the engine.
I remember these and the H2 made early 00s environmentalists freak out. Turns out only a few years later 4 door pickups and full size SUVs became – and still are – super popular.
I’ll drop some pics in the Discord when I pick it up!
Learn what? It sounds like you’ve already got a working system.
If the car is an EV with no known model issues, absolutely zero records would be fine. Actually, any maintenance records beyond tires and cabin filters would potentially be a red flag for an EV under 50k miles or so.
Well considering every car I’ve ever bought has had none, I guess that’s your answer.
But then I don’t buy pedigreed cars, so no one cares. I’m not that anal about it.
I just bought a 92 Miata with hard top for $5500 and zero history. He is a local SCCA guy that saw his neighbor selling the car after a medical issue. Figured he’d find someone interested.
I bought an 88 Porsche 944 Turbo a couple years ago with a giant binder of history back to the factory in Germany he picked it up from. It seemed in great shape so I spent more than I wanted. It STILL cost me another $5-6k within a couple months on $%*& I didn’t know anything about. Sold it a year later.
TL;DR answer – it depends on the price.
I’ve owned close to sixty cars. Most of them didn’t have any. When you’re looking at cash cars under 10k you can’t expect a whole lot. The one big exception I had was when I purchased an 01 lexus lx470. The “lexus land cruiser”. It had over 400k miles and over 60k in paperwork from the local lexus dealership. It was a company car and no expense was spared when it came to maintenance. Literally EVERY oil change was done at the dealership to the tune of about $250. Along with other maintenance items. Broken headlight, steering rack, etc. It really added up.
At my price point, I can’t expect any service records.
I don’t track my own maintenance history, why would I expect it from someone else? Live life on the edge.