Guides
Guides: what to settle before buying a car
Long-form answers to the questions that get three sentences on a landing page — from importing through the viewing to the handover when you sell.
Buying
Asking a seller questions without speaking their language
The car is right; the seller just writes in Italian, Polish or Dutch. You cannot translate the language barrier away, but you can make it smaller: with questions that need no translation at all, and with answers made of numbers, dates and photos.
7 min read
Buying
Is the car really there? Photos with a random code
A listing shows what a car looked like at some point — not whether it stands today where the seller says it does. Before you drive hundreds of kilometres, you can ask the seller for three photos with a random code. That settles one question, and exactly one.
6 min read
Buying
Describe the car you want and let dealers offer
Not every car is online when you look for it. Some dealers have one on its way, at a partner or expected as a trade-in. A wanted request reverses the direction: you describe the car once, and dealers it suits can send you an offer.
6 min read
Buying
Searching in one sentence: what the filters make of it
Instead of setting a dozen filters, you can type a sentence on Carvexia, in your own language, and the search sets the filters itself. That saves time as long as you know what happens: only what translates clearly into a filter is taken from the sentence. The rest is dropped rather than guessed.
5 min read
Costs
Seeing the first costs after purchase in advance
The most expensive surprise with a used car rarely comes on the day of purchase but in the months after: the test that falls due, the service that is pending, the tyres. Some of it you can see on the car's page before you commit — with prices that garages state themselves, and without estimated amounts.
6 min read
Selling
Seller's statements: answers that save questions
Most messages to a seller ask the same ten questions, each time in different words and often in a different language. The seller's statements answer them once, in fixed form, readable in every language of the site. That is exactly why each answer deserves the same care as a line in the contract.
6 min read
Selling
Once around the car: a listing from a walk-around
A listing form has a lot of fields, and you know most of the answers without looking anything up. The walk-around turns the order round: first photograph and talk, then check what came of it. That saves typing, but only if you know what the analysis takes over and what explicitly stays with you.
6 min read
Selling
Show, don't claim: odometer, service book, keys
“Service book available” is a sentence. A photo of the service book is something anyone can look at for themselves. The “Visible in the photos” card connects the two: it does not say that something is true, but on which photo you can check.
5 min read
Selling
Handing the vehicle file to the buyer
When the car changes hands, so does its memory: invoices, test reports, due dates, the mileage at the last service. Hand that over in order and you spare the buyer guesswork and yourself later phone calls, while keeping what is yours.
5 min read
Technology
Connected car: removing the previous owner's account
A car can be sold and still obey someone who no longer sits in it. Through the manufacturer's app it can be located, unlocked or pre-heated, and the screen holds the previous owner's contacts, destinations and home address. Hardly any handover checklist has a line for it.
6 min read
Selling
Cutting days in stock: what keeps a car unsold
A car that sits too long costs money every day, and the usual answer is a discount. Often that is right, often it is not — a car can be held back by its price, by its photos and text, or by being offered in the wrong market. This piece shows how to tell those apart across your whole stock.
7 min read
Selling
Answering enquiries until they become viewings
An enquiry is not a sale but the start of a conversation that can break off at any point. Sellers with many enquiries lose most of them not to better offers but to follow-up questions nobody should have needed to ask. This piece sets out the order that leads to a viewing.
6 min read
Selling
Dealer listings that get found: data over prose
With a single car, the text decides whether anyone writes. With fifty cars, something else decides first: whether they show up in searches at all — and that depends on data fields, not on wording. This piece goes through the fields buyers actually use and shows how to get them complete across a whole stock.
6 min read
Selling
Answering wanted requests: offers for cars you lack
A wanted request is a buyer who did not find their car in the search but still wants to buy it. For a dealer, that is a rare chance to offer a car that is not yet in any results list. This piece shows what an offer looks like that gets taken seriously.
6 min read
Importing
Offering export sales: what dealers need to set
Buyers from across a customs border ask about a net price early on. Whether you offer one is a decision about your own process — because if the export evidence never arrives, you owe the tax regardless. This piece goes through what to settle before the first such enquiry comes in.
7 min read
Workshop
A workshop price list customers understand
Anyone putting two price lists side by side compares numbers first and what lies behind them second — if at all. For your own price to be read correctly, the scope has to be where the customer looks. This piece is for garages and goes through the price list line by line.
6 min read
Workshop
Booking requests: confirm, reschedule, decline
A booking request is not yet an appointment but the start of a short conversation. How it goes is usually decided by the first answer: it either settles what is missing or leaves the customer guessing. This piece is for garages that receive requests through the directory.
6 min read
Spare parts
Parts catalogue: fitment data that saves questions
Every question before an order is a detail the catalogue was missing. Some buyers ask; most order elsewhere or not at all. This piece is for parts sellers and goes through the columns that decide the fit — and the ones buyers read right after.
6 min read
Spare parts
Requesting a car part no catalogue lists
Not every part is in a catalogue. Some are rare, some a dealer stocks without listing them individually, and some can only be found with the right number. A part request turns the search around: you describe what you need, and dealers get in touch — if they have something.
5 min read
Workshop
Checking for recalls with the VIN
A recall never covers a model as a whole but a list of individual vehicles. Whether yours is on it cannot be read from the model name, only from the chassis number — and the list is kept by the manufacturer.
6 min read
Workshop
France's contrôle technique: process and defect levels
The contrôle technique does not end in a simple pass or fail but in a report that puts every fault into one of three levels. The level on that report decides whether you may keep driving, whether a retest is due — and what a buyer learns about the car.
5 min read
Workshop
Italy's revisione: the test and its record
In Italy the revisione is carried out either by a Motorizzazione office or by an approved test centre, and the result is one of three words. Know what regolare, ripetere and sospeso mean and where the result is stored, and you read an Italian listing with different eyes.
5 min read
Workshop
Spain's ITV: appointment, test, windscreen sticker
In Spain the ITV is not a workshop service but a test at a dedicated station run on behalf of the region. Know how it works and you pass first time more often — and when buying, you get more out of the sticker, the report and the register than out of the listing.
5 min read
Workshop
Poland's przegląd techniczny: station, record, mileage
In Poland the odometer reading is officially recorded at every test. That makes the przegląd techniczny more than a duty for the keeper: it leaves a trail that a buyer can read for themselves before paying.
5 min read
Workshop
STK in Czechia and Slovakia: what the test covers
In Czechia and Slovakia the periodic test consists of two checks, and some registration steps add a third that is only about the car's identity. Keep the parts apart and you understand the report — and know what a listing that mentions “STK” is actually telling you.
5 min read
Importing
Buying a car from the Netherlands: APK, NAP, export
Few countries publish as much about their used cars as the Netherlands: with the plate number, anyone can see test dates, defects and a verdict on the mileage. A buyer from abroad only needs to know how far those entries go — and how the car leaves the Dutch register.
7 min read
Selling
Selling a car in Belgium: inspection, Car-Pass, plates
In Belgium the buyer does not drive off on the seller's plates, and without a Car-Pass the sale can be undone afterwards. Knowing that, you sell without surprises — and can tell a buyer from a neighbouring country what to bring.
6 min read
Selling
Selling a car in France: cession, non-gage, ANTS
Selling a car in France is a paperwork exercise with fixed building blocks: four documents for the buyer, a declaration through ANTS and a code that links the two. Know the order and you are genuinely out of it after the sale — even when the buyer takes the car across the border.
6 min read
Buying
Buying a car in Italy: the passaggio di proprietà
In Italy a car is only truly sold once the register knows about it. The seller's signature must be certified and the change entered in the PRA — and anyone who wants to export the car needs a separate route, because without Italian residence they usually cannot register it in their own name at all.
6 min read
Buying
Buying used in Spain: transfer, tax, environmental label
Buying used in Spain involves two procedures that are easily confused: the transfer at the traffic authority and the tax the region levies on the purchase. On top of that come a report anyone can request, and a sticker that helps decide a car's value in some cities.
6 min read
On the road
Crit'Air: France's clean-air sticker
The Crit'Air sticker is a round label with a number on it, and if you only cross France on the motorway you can often do without one. If you want to drive into a city with a low-emission zone, though, you need it even on foreign plates — stuck to the windscreen before you set off, because it arrives by post.
7 min read
On the road
Italy's ZTL: into the old town without a fine
In many Italian cities the old town is closed to cars, not with a barrier but with a camera. Drive in and you notice nothing — until a letter arrives months later. Here is how to recognise the zone, who may enter, and how to get into town without a fine.
6 min read
On the road
Low-emission zones on the drive home
If you collect a car abroad, you often drive home through three or four countries on a plate that has existed since yesterday. The motorway is rarely the problem; the cities are. Here are the three patterns by which low-emission zones work in Europe, and how to plan the route so that no fine follows you home.
6 min read
On the road
E-vignettes: why they are tied to the number plate
The sticker on the windscreen is disappearing. In more and more countries the vignette is an entry in a register, and the roadside camera checks only one thing: the plate. Understand that and you avoid the two expensive mistakes — the typo at purchase and the vignette for the wrong plate.
5 min read
On the road
Tolls in southern Europe: booths, tags and cameras
In southern Europe you pay for distance, not for time. How the charge is collected differs from country to country and increasingly from road to road — with a barrier, with a tag or without stopping at all. Know the three methods and you get through without a demand for payment turning up months later.
6 min read
Electric
Tyres on an EV: why they wear faster
You often hear that electric cars go through tyres faster, usually without an explanation. Three traits of the drivetrain work together. Know them and you choose the right tyre, make it last longer and notice sooner when something is off.
7 min read
Electric
Servicing an EV: what stays and what goes
An electric car has fewer parts that wear out, but not none. Knowing what actually happens at a service lets you read the invoice, judge the appointment properly and ask the right questions about the service book when you buy.
6 min read
Electric
Bidirectional charging: V2L, V2H and V2G explained
An electric car's battery often stores as much energy as a household uses over several days. Giving some of it back seems obvious. Technically and legally, though, these are three different things, and they have come different distances.
6 min read
Electric
EVs in the heat: charging, cooling, parking
In winter you lose range; in summer the battery ages. Heat is less noticeable in an electric car than cold, but its effects last longer. A few habits when charging and parking catch much of it.
6 min read
Electric
Breaking down in an EV: flat battery, towing, moving on
Breaking down in an electric car is rarely dramatic, but it is different from a combustion car. There is no jerry can, towing has its own rules, and after a crash everyone involved needs to know there is high voltage on board. The details are in your car's owner's manual; this piece covers what applies to nearly all of them.
6 min read
Powertrain
Used full hybrid: battery, cooling, transmission
A full hybrid with a high odometer reading puts many buyers off, yet on this kind of car the odometer is a poor yardstick. What matters are a handful of components an ordinary used car does not have — and they can be checked one by one once you know where to look.
7 min read
Technology
AdBlue: what the system needs and what stops it
A modern diesel needs a second fluid besides fuel, and if it runs out or the system behind it fails, the engine eventually refuses to start. Knowing how the system works lets you spot the warning signs early — on your own car and on a used one.
7 min read
Technology
Clutch and dual-mass flywheel: the warning signs
The clutch and the dual-mass flywheel sit one behind the other between engine and gearbox, and when either of them tires, the sound and feel are often similar. If you can tell the signs apart, you negotiate on a used car with arguments rather than a hunch.
6 min read
Buying
Hail damage: spotting, repairing, pricing it in
Hail damage is rarely dangerous, but it is almost always dearer or cheaper than it looks — depending on which side of the deal you are on. If you can find the dents, know the repair methods and understand what a payout without repair means, you negotiate on solid ground.
6 min read
Workshop
New windscreen: why the camera needs calibrating
Behind the windscreen of many cars sits a camera that several driver assistance systems depend on. When the glass is replaced or the wheel alignment reset, it may end up looking slightly off target — and you only notice when a system reacts wrongly.
6 min read
Legal
Sending someone: buying and collecting by proxy
Buying a car a long way off does not always mean you can go and fetch it yourself. Then someone else goes — a friend, a relative, a professional driver — and everything that person may do there is set out on one sheet of paper that you write beforehand.
7 min read
Legal
A cross-border sales contract: language, law, currency
A contract between two people in two countries contains the same points as any other — plus four questions nobody has to ask at home. Answer them in the contract, and you will not need a court whose language you do not speak to answer them later.
7 min read
Costs
Buying abroad as a business: net price and VAT ID
A business with a valid VAT identification number can buy a vehicle from a dealer in another EU country without that country's VAT. That does not make it tax-free: the tax moves to the business's own country, and the dealer only sells net if he can prove the car gets there.
6 min read
Costs
Paying in a foreign currency: rate, fees, timing
If you buy a car priced in euros with francs, zloty, crowns, forint or lei — or the other way round — you do not pay the price in the listing. You pay that price at a rate, on a day, by a route. Each of those three moves the amount, and all three can be settled in advance.
6 min read
Electric
Buying an EV abroad: plugs, software, warranty
An electric car is a vehicle with a computer, an account with the manufacturer and a battery whose value depends on a warranty. All three come in a country version, and a cross-border purchase decides whether that version comes along.
7 min read
Legal
Withdrawing from a car purchase: when it applies
Giving back a car with nothing wrong with it because you have changed your mind is possible in one particular situation only: a consumer buys from a business, and the contract is made without the two meeting in person. Knowing where that line runs tells you what you need in writing before you sign.
7 min read
Costs
Taking over a lease: stepping into a running contract
A lease takeover looks like a good deal: a short remaining term, no down payment, a car straight away. Whether it is one depends not on the monthly rate but on what you take on with the contract in mileage, damage and end-of-term risk.
6 min read
Costs
Financing a car bought abroad
The right car is in the neighbouring country and the money is to come from a bank. That works, but rarely through the dealer there — and only if approval, payment, transfer and registration run in an order in which the bank always knows what it is paying for.
7 min read
Legal
An inherited car: keep, re-register or sell
A car in an estate is rarely the biggest matter after a death, but it is one of the first that presses: it is parked somewhere, it is insured and registered, and it is losing value. Knowing the order of steps lets you decide calmly rather than under pressure.
7 min read
Costs
Insuring an EV: what matters in the policy
An electric car is insured with the same building blocks as any other: liability, partial cover, comprehensive. The difference lies in the terms — in what happens to the battery, the cables and the most expensive component after damage.
6 min read
Everyday
Getting a car ready for winter: the autumn checklist
Winter does not create a car's weaknesses; it just reveals them all at once — on the first frosty morning, the first salted road, the first queue in falling snow. In autumn nearly all of it can be dealt with for little effort, provided you start with whatever needs an appointment.
7 min read
Workshop
Roadworthiness tests in the Nordics and the Baltics
Sweden, Denmark, Finland and the three Baltic states test their cars under the same European ground rules, but with their own names, their own bodies and their own consequences. Anyone keeping a car there or planning to buy one should know the differences — and know that the test reports often say more about a car than the listing does.
6 min read
Technology
Coolant and overheating: what the gauge tells you
The temperature gauge is the instrument hardly anyone looks at until it moves. By then it is often late — because many gauges are deliberately damped and only react once something in the circuit is already wrong. Knowing how the cooling circuit works lets you read the signs earlier.
7 min read
Everyday
Stone chips and scratches: repair before it costs more
A stone chip and a scratch are the cheapest damage a car can have — as long as they stay small. Both grow, and winter speeds it up: frost cracks the glass, salt creeps under the paint.
6 min read
Technology
Shock absorbers and suspension: spotting wear
Suspension wears so slowly that the driver adapts along with it. You notice the difference only by comparison, or in the one moment when it matters: swerving, braking on a rippled road, a crosswind on the motorway.
6 min read
Spare parts
Genuine, aftermarket, used: what the parts labels mean
The same spare part often comes in five forms at five prices. The difference is rarely in how it looks; it lies in who made it, to whose specification — and who answers for it if it fails.
8 min read
Spare parts
Reading OE numbers: checking that a part will fit
A part that does not fit costs twice: the return shipping and the day the car sits dismantled on the lift. Most wrong orders do not come from carelessness but from “fits model X” being less precise than it sounds.
7 min read
Spare parts
Buying used parts online: what to settle before you order
A used part can keep a car economically alive that a bill for new parts would finish off. It can also be bought three times before one fits. The difference almost always lies in the questions asked before the order.
7 min read
Workshop
Renewing brakes: pads, discs and what goes with them
That the brakes are due, the wear indicator or the workshop will tell you. What exactly gets done then turns on a few points that appear on the quote as a single line — and that make the difference between brakes that stay quiet for years and brakes that squeal after three weeks.
7 min read
Technology
The starter battery: when it fades and what matters when replacing it
A starter battery usually announces its end; hardly anyone reads the signs. And when it comes to replacing it, it is no longer a part you choose by size and clamp in — on many cars it belongs to the electronics, which need to know a new one has been fitted.
7 min read
Workshop
Preparing for a garage appointment: what the workshop needs to know
A workshop works with what it learns when it takes the car in. Say “it makes funny noises” and you get a search billed by the hour. Describe when, where and how, and you get a diagnosis — and usually the smaller bill.
7 min read
On the road
Warning lights: which mean stop now and which can wait
A warning light is a summary in a single symbol. Some say “stop now”, others “visit a workshop when convenient” — and confusing the two costs you either an engine or a tow truck you did not need.
7 min read
Workshop
Reading fault codes: what an OBD code tells you and what it does not
A simple adapter for the diagnostic socket costs little and delivers a code with a plain-text description in seconds. That tempts you to conclude you now know what is broken. What you know is which sensor complained — and that is a different piece of information.
7 min read
Selling
Trade-in: leaving your old car with the dealer
Handing over your old car at the dealer and driving off in the new one is convenient, and convenience has a price. The question is not whether the dealer pays less than a private buyer — he almost always does — but whether the gap is bigger than what a private sale would demand of you.
7 min read
Legal
Buying a car that still has finance or a lease on it
Many cars are financed or leased, and some of them come up for sale before they are paid off. That is no reason to steer clear — but it is a reason to keep to the order in which money and papers change hands.
7 min read
Buying
Watching the market instead of searching every day
Scroll through the same search every evening and eventually you only see what is new, not what is good. A market is easier to watch if you decide beforehand what you are looking for and then pay attention to movements rather than individual cars.
6 min read
Buying
Timing a purchase: when the market works for you
Used-car prices are market prices, and markets have rhythms. Knowing them can win you something on price. Overrating them means waiting for the perfect month and buying under pressure in the end.
6 min read
Buying
Vehicles for a small business: choosing, buying, running
For a trade business, a delivery service or a small office, a vehicle is not a status symbol but a tool that has to work every day. Yet it is often bought like a private car — by feel, by offer and without the questions that only surface after six months in the business.
6 min read
Buying
The first message to a seller: questions that save you trips
Most viewings that end with “I could have saved myself the trip” could have been prevented with one message. The first enquiry is not a courtesy note but the cheapest filter a car purchase has.
7 min read
Buying
Comparing specifications: trim lines, packs and what listings leave out
Two listings with the same model name, the same engine and a similar price can describe two very different cars. The difference lies in the equipment — and that is where listings are least reliable, because each one writes it up differently.
6 min read
Buying
New in the country: buying a car before everything is set up
Anyone moving to a new country often needs a car first and gets the papers it requires last. The order differs from back home — and knowing it means you are not left with a car you have bought but cannot register.
6 min read
Electric
Consumption, not range: the number you actually work with
A listing quotes a range; daily life runs on something else. Once you know the consumption figure you can derive any range yourself — including the January one, which no listing ever quotes.
10 min read
Electric
Charging where you arrive: a socket, a hotel, a campsite
A car spends most of its life parked. Use those hours and you will barely need a rapid charger en route — provided you know in advance what is actually on the wall where you are going.
10 min read
Electric
Charging abroad: what your card, app and account are really worth
At home charging is a habit. Two hundred kilometres past a border it becomes a transaction with four parties again, three of which do not speak your language — and it fails not over money but over authorisation.
11 min read
Electric
Planning a long drive through several countries
A journey in an electric car rarely founders on the technology and frequently on the choice of planning variable. Think in range and you are planning the car. Think in state of charge on arrival and you are planning the trip.
11 min read
Electric
An electric car in the mountains: the pass, and what comes after
In the mountains an electric car behaves unlike a combustion car, and it does so in both directions: the climb is alarming, the descent is not. Once you know the arithmetic, it is the calmest way to cross a pass there is.
10 min read
Technology
Towing a trailer with an electric car
An electric drivetrain pulls away with a trailer effortlessly and holds a combination down a hill beautifully. The two problems lie elsewhere: in the paperwork and at the charging bay.
10 min read
Electric
Plug-in hybrid: the arithmetic that comes before the purchase
A plug-in hybrid is either the most sensible car for a particular life, or the least sensible car on the market. What separates the two is not engineering but a habit — and the habit can be calculated before you buy.
11 min read
Electric
When an electric car stands for a long time
Three weeks away, a winter in a garage, a car waiting at a port for shipment: standing still is not a neutral state for an electric car but one with rules of its own.
10 min read
Everyday
The first week with a car you have just bought
The handover is the moment everyone prepares for. Nobody prepares for the week afterwards — yet that week decides whether an unknown car becomes a known one, or stays a car you only know from driving it.
9 min read
Everyday
Summer and winter tyres: changing, storing, replacing
The tyre is the only component that connects the car to the road, and the only one that passes through the owner's hands twice a year. Together, that makes it the part where most can go wrong.
10 min read
Everyday
What a service includes — and how to read the quote
Two workshops quote two numbers for the same car, and the lower one is not automatically the cheaper one. Usually it is the shorter list. The difference is in the line items, and line items can be read.
10 min read
Everyday
Dealer, chain or independent: choosing a workshop
The question is usually asked as a question about price and is really one about the job. For some work there is exactly one right address, for most there are three — and for a few the most expensive one is the cheapest.
9 min read
On the road
A breakdown abroad: what to do, in what order
A breakdown abroad is rarely a technical problem and almost always an organisational one. Somebody else deals with the technology. What you decide is the order — and the first two minutes decide the rest.
9 min read
On the road
An accident abroad: the European accident statement and the photographs
The European accident statement is the most effective piece of paper in the glovebox — and the one most often filled in wrongly. It is a joint record of facts, not an admission of fault, and it replaces not one single photograph.
10 min read
Everyday
What to keep in the car — and what the law where you drive requires
There is no European list of mandatory equipment. There are twenty national lists that overlap without matching — and alongside them a second list that nobody prescribes and that helps more when something happens.
8 min read
Everyday
Before a long journey, and before a long stand
A car is built for regular, moderate use. Two thousand kilometres in one run and six months standing still are both exceptional states — and both fail in ways everyday driving never produces.
10 min read
Importing
A car from Germany to Switzerland: the process in eight steps
Bringing a car from Germany to Switzerland is not one procedure but a chain of eight, and every link has a precondition. Taking them in the wrong order costs no fee — it costs weeks.
10 min read
Importing
Importing a car into Austria: what the NoVA does to the price
Within the EU there is no customs duty on the way into Austria — and yet the import is rarely as cheap as the price gap suggests. The reason is the Normverbrauchsabgabe, and it hits hardest exactly those cars that are cheapest abroad.
9 min read
Importing
Missing COC: what the import costs then
The certificate of conformity is the least impressive sheet in a car's folder and the only one whose absence visibly changes what an import costs. This piece sets out what it contains, where a replacement comes from, and what the route without it actually demands.
8 min read
Importing
Individual approval: when a car has no European type approval
A European type approval is the reason registering a car is normally a counter appointment rather than an investigation. Where it is missing, individual approval takes its place — a different procedure with its own effort, its own timeline and an open outcome.
10 min read
Importing
Moving the car home: short-term plates, export plates or a trailer
Between the handshake at the seller's and your own driveway lie a few hundred kilometres on which the car is yours but registered nowhere. Which option is right is decided not by price but by the question of whose insurance covers that stretch.
9 min read
Buying
EU reimport: why the same new car costs less abroad
A new car does not cost the same everywhere in Europe, and on popular models the gap is wide enough to support an entire trade. This piece sets out where the gap comes from, how much of it reaches the buyer, and where it dissolves again.
9 min read
Costs
Reclaiming VAT when you export a car: the order of events
Take a car out of the single market into a state outside it and, in certain circumstances, the VAT of the country of sale can come back. Whether it does is decided not at the border but in a sentence in the purchase contract — one that has to be written in before you pay.
9 min read
Buying
Paying for a car abroad without losing your money
In a cross-border purchase the risk is not the car but the gap between the moment your money is gone and the moment the car is there. Every sensible precaution comes down to closing that gap to nothing.
10 min read
Importing
Import paperwork: the list you need at the border
An import rarely fails on the mechanics and regularly on a sheet of paper somebody assumed was in the glovebox. This list orders the documents by the stage at which they are asked for, because that is the only order in which they are any use.
8 min read
Legal
The customs declaration for a vehicle: who files what, and when
Most buyers picture the border as a single formality and then find themselves in two procedures, in two states, with two sets of responsibilities. This piece sorts out who is the declarant at which step, what data is required, and what has to be in your hands at the end.
9 min read
Buying
Spotting a repaired accident car: the traces that stay
Almost every car past ten years old has lost some metal along the way, and most of it is irrelevant. Only one question matters: was load-bearing structure deformed — and if it was, how was it straightened?
9 min read
Buying
Negotiating the price: what actually works
The price of a used car is rarely decided at the kitchen table but before it — by what you know about the market and about this particular car. Arrive with evidence and you are done in ten minutes, where opinions take an hour and still move nothing.
8 min read
Buying
Buying privately or from a dealer: what the difference costs
For the same car, the gap between a private advert and a dealer's forecourt is regularly several thousand euros. The question is not whether that gap is justified but what you get for it — and whether you need it.
9 min read
Buying
Reading the service book: what the stamps tell you
“Full service history” appears in every other advert and on its own means little. The book gets interesting only when you hold the entries up against each other — and when you know which jobs never appear in it at all.
9 min read
Buying
How many kilometres a year is normal?
Mileage is the one number every buyer compares, and it describes the condition of a car about as well as age describes a person's health. The useful question is not whether a figure is high but how it came about.
8 min read
Buying
Nearly new, demonstrator, pre-registered — the difference
Between a new car and a used one lies a field with its own vocabulary, and none of it is protected. What a car has actually been through is not in the advert but in the registration document and the service book.
9 min read
Buying
Buying a car you have never seen
The stock across Europe is large, and the best offer is rarely in your own town. Buying a car at a distance is therefore not recklessness but a piece of organisation — with an order of steps you do not depart from.
10 min read
Buying
Checking a car's history: what the chassis number gives away
Every car carries a number that distinguishes it from all others, and almost every piece of information about its past hangs on it. Asking for it before you travel saves more wasted appointments than any other single question.
9 min read
Legal
Fraud in a car purchase: the recurring patterns
Look at attempted frauds one by one and you memorise stories and fail to recognise the next one. Look at the structure and you recognise them all — there are only a few patterns, and each has a point at which it turns.
10 min read
Buying
The test drive: what to check, and in what order
Most test drives establish whether a car is likeable, and that is settled within a minute. The expensive questions are answered only by a drive built for the purpose — five kinds of road, a fixed order, the radio off.
11 min read
Legal
Excluding warranty: the clause that holds
Almost every private sale contract contains a warranty exclusion, and almost every seller believes that settles it. That holds for the engine that dies two weeks later — and it does not hold for the damage you knew about and did not mention.
9 min read
Selling
Deregister first, or sell it still registered?
A deregistered car is safe but hard to sell; a registered one sells more easily and leaves you liable until the buyer re-registers it. The question is not which route is right but which one fits your car and your buyer.
8 min read
Selling
The handover record: the lines that protect you
A contract says what was sold; a handover record says in what condition and at what moment it changed hands. The second one is almost always missing — and it is exactly the document people ask for later.
8 min read
Selling
Payment fraud when selling: how to spot it
In a car sale one side lets go of an object worth four or five figures, and the other hands over money. Every scam aims to pull those two events apart in time — and it is almost always the seller who is asked to go first.
9 min read
Legal
A test drive with a stranger: what to settle first
The test drive is the moment a stranger drives off in your car, and legally the trickiest part of the whole sale. It is still barely risky if three things are settled first: the cover, the person and the agreement.
8 min read
Selling
Selling a damaged car: residual value, not the scrapyard
When the repair costs more than the car is worth, that does not mean the car is worth nothing. It only means its value now consists of parts, substance and other people's interest — and that value is regularly higher than the first offer anyone makes you.
9 min read
Costs
Returning a leased car: keeping the final bill small
The unpleasant bill after a lease return is rarely created on the day of handover; it is created in the months before, when nobody was looking. Start half a year ahead and you decide yourself what gets repaired, and at what price.
9 min read
Importing
Selling abroad: export, plates, liability
A car that is hard to sell at home can be in demand across the border — four-wheel drive, a tow bar and big diesels find very different numbers of takers across Europe. The premium is real, and the extra steps are manageable if you know them in advance.
10 min read
Legal
Scrapping a car: the destruction certificate and deregistration
Scrapping a car is not throwing it away but handing it to a business that guarantees it is genuinely dismantled. The paperwork is why that handover is legally something quite different from letting the first caller tow it off.
8 min read
Selling
The listing text that brings enquiries
The data fields of a listing decide whether your car appears in a results list at all. The text decides whether someone who sees it there actually writes — and it is usually written as if it had the first job.
8 min read
Electric
A wallbox at home: what it gives you and what it asks for
A wallbox is not an accessory, it is an electrical installation. What it does for you day to day depends less on the box on the wall than on the cable that feeds it.
9 min read
Electric
Winter range: how much you actually lose
That an electric car goes less far in winter is well known; why it does usually is not. The three causes differ in weight, and only two of them can be worked around.
9 min read
Electric
Understanding the charging curve: why 150 kW is not 150 kW
The charging power in the brochure is an instantaneous value and on its own says little. What counts is the area under the curve — and that depends on physics you cannot get around.
10 min read
Technology
Mild, full and plug-in hybrids — the differences
The same word appears on all three, but inside they are three different concepts. The difference decides whether the purchase pays back or merely adds weight.
9 min read
Legal
The battery warranty: what it promises and what it does not
A battery warranty sounds like security and is in fact a narrowly drawn promise. Knowing what it covers lets you value a used electric car far more accurately.
9 min read
Costs
Replacing the battery: what makes it expensive
Fear of replacing the battery decides more used electric car purchases than any other consideration. It can be turned into arithmetic as soon as you know what the price is made of.
9 min read
Costs
Charging on the road: what makes up the price
The same kilowatt-hour at the same charger costs very different amounts depending on your contract. Knowing the four items that make up the price lets you choose a tariff sensibly for the first time.
8 min read
Technology
Type 2, CCS, adapters: what has to come with the car
A missing charging cable is not a cosmetic flaw but a three-figure item. And an adapter that does not exist is why an imported car will not charge at the nearest point.
8 min read
Electric
A heat pump in an electric car: when the option pays back
The heat pump is the most discussed option on an electric car and the worst explained. Its benefit is real but depends on two conditions anyone can check for themselves.
8 min read
Buying
An electric car as a second car: when the sums work
As the only car in a household an electric car has to do everything. As a second car it only has to do what comes up every day — and that is exactly where it is strongest.
9 min read
Technology
Timing belt or timing chain: what matters when you buy used
The belt-or-chain question is usually asked as if one design were simply better. The more useful question is a different one: what happens when the part gives up, and what tells you beforehand that it is about to.
9 min read
Technology
The particulate filter: how to tell it is struggling
A particulate filter rarely fails suddenly. It fills up over months, and the car says so in several ways long before the warning lamp comes on.
9 min read
Technology
Automatic gearboxes: the oil change that gets forgotten
No part of the drivetrain is overlooked as reliably as the oil in an automatic gearbox. Many maintenance schedules do not mention it at all — and when it fails it costs more than any other item you could have planned for.
10 min read
Technology
Turbochargers: the signs before it gets expensive
A turbocharger is a simple component under extreme conditions: two wheels on one shaft, bearing in engine oil, at speeds far beyond anything else in the car. Almost everything that happens to it happens to the oil first.
9 min read
Buying
Checking the air conditioning on a used car properly
Almost every viewing checks the air conditioning the same way: switch it on, hand in front of the vent, move on. That misses the difference between a system that works and one that still works.
8 min read
Buying
Rust: where it shows up first and where it decides
Rust is the one ailment on a car that is visible before it becomes expensive — provided you look in the right place. Those places are the same on almost every car, because they follow from how cars are built rather than from who built them.
9 min read
Technology
Brakes: spotting wear without taking the wheel off
Brakes are the one wear item on a car where a misjudgement has immediate consequences. Most of the assessment can nevertheless be done standing still, with a lamp and ten minutes.
9 min read
Technology
Tyre age: what the DOT code tells you
Tread depth is the figure everyone looks at, and it answers only half the question. The other half is moulded right next to it on the sidewall, and most people read straight past it.
9 min read
Technology
All-wheel drive is not one thing: the designs compared
A listing says “4x4”, and underneath that sit constructions with little in common. The difference decides how the car behaves, what tyres cost you, and what breaks as it ages.
10 min read
Technology
Engine oil: which figure on the papers actually counts
The registration document does not say which oil belongs in the engine. It does carry the details that answer the question — and the three blocks of text on the bottle are not worth the same.
10 min read
Costs
Leasing or a loan: what the decision actually turns on
The monthly payment is the number in the window and the only one that decides nothing. What counts is the total outlay over the time you keep the car, and who owns it at the end.
10 min read
Costs
Balloon finance: where the risk actually sits
Balloon finance pushes most of the debt to the end of the term and makes the monthly payment look small. What matters is not how small it looks but what is actually available on the day the final payment falls due.
9 min read
Costs
Car insurance: which details move the premium
Two people insure the same car with the same company and pay noticeably different amounts. The reason is not in the tariff but in the details supplied before the quote is produced.
10 min read
Costs
The excess on comprehensive cover: when raising it pays
The excess is the only adjustment on a policy that takes effect immediately and changes nothing about how you are rated. What it is worth depends on two figures: how far the premium falls and how often you actually claim.
9 min read
Legal
Statutory rights and a warranty are two different things
Both terms turn up in the same sales conversation and mean different things: one claim arises by itself out of the sale, the other only where someone expressly promises it. The difference becomes visible the moment something breaks.
10 min read
Legal
The contract of sale: what belongs in it and what does not
A contract of sale is not written for a dispute but against one: it records what both sides knew and meant on the day of handover. The more precisely it does that, the less there is to assert later.
9 min read
Costs
Deposit and residual: the two numbers that shape the contract
Every finance and leasing contract runs on the same four inputs, and two of them are negotiated at the sales desk: the deposit at the start and the residual at the end. Understand what they do, and every offer turns out to be the same calculation.
9 min read
Costs
What a kilometre really costs
Monthly costs answer the question whether you can afford a car. Cost per kilometre answers whether a particular trip, a second car or a change of vehicle is worth it — and for that you need two different figures, not one.
9 min read
Costs
Depreciation: what drives it and what slows it
On most cars depreciation is the largest single cost and the only one that never arrives as an invoice. It follows no fixed rule, but it does follow causes — and those can be checked one by one before you buy.
10 min read
Costs
Company car or private: the question to settle first
The question of company car versus private is usually posed as a tax question and is first a question about ownership, use and liability. Only once those three are settled is there anything to calculate.
10 min read
Selling
Selling your car: the order that saves money
Most private sales do not lose money in the negotiation but before it: on a price set wrongly, and on a listing that brings no enquiries. This order removes both problems.
7 min read
Buying
Spotting a wound-back odometer: seven checks
A wound-back odometer costs the buyer several thousand on average — not at once, but through the repairs that arrive earlier than expected. The good news: tampering leaves traces in places the forger rarely thinks about.
6 min read
Powertrain
Diesel, petrol or electric — doing the sums
The question has no general answer, but it can be calculated. Four quantities decide it: your annual mileage, your driving profile, whether you can charge at home, and how long you intend to keep the car.
8 min read
Costs
What a car really costs per month
Most buyers budget for fuel and insurance and are then surprised by the workshop bill. This breakdown contains every item — and shows why depreciation dwarfs everything else on a young car.
7 min read
Legal
Warranty, statutory rights, goodwill — the difference
People buying a car say “warranty” when they mean their statutory rights, and end up with goodwill. The three differ in who owes them, how long they last and who has to prove what — which is exactly what matters when something breaks.
6 min read
Buying
Your first car: what actually matters
With a first car, the purchase price is the smallest of the numbers involved. Insurance, consumption, reliability and parts prices decide whether the first year is a pleasure or empties the account.
6 min read
Electric
Checking battery health before you buy
On a used electric car a single figure decides a substantial part of the price: the state of health of the battery. It can be established — and a seller who refuses is already telling you something.
7 min read
On the road
Winter tyres in Europe: what applies where
Driving through Europe in winter means crossing several sets of rules. An overview written once and never updated is more dangerous than none — so here is what rarely changes, and where to look up what changes often.
5 min read
Importing
Importing a car into Switzerland: what gets added
The price gap between two markets says little until you know what still gets added before the car wears Swiss plates. This piece works through the items in order — and names the two where the sum most often tips.
8 min read
Buying
The viewing: a verdict in twenty minutes
Most bad buys happen not because someone missed a fault but because they looked in the wrong order. This order takes twenty minutes and answers the expensive questions first.
7 min read
Electric
A used electric car: the battery is half the purchase price
On a used combustion car you check a dozen things. On an electric car one of them decides almost everything — and it can be read out rather than guessed at.
6 min read
Selling
Selling a car: how to set the price without guessing
Priced too high, the car sits for weeks and gets cheaper while it does. Priced too low it is gone in two days — and you left money on the table. Both are avoidable if you know what to compare against.
6 min read