I wonder if anyone has had any experience of the various companies who offer to inspect a car before a purchase is made?

A potential purchaser, who turned out to be a total timewaster in the end, and who had no technical knowledge whatsoever, commissioned a company (National Vehicle Inspections I think, but don't quote me) to carry out an inspection of my Octy vRS recently.

The 'inspector' eventually turned up late, in a battered old Citroen estate, wearing jeans + t-shirt. He admitted that he was not a qualified or time-served vehicle technician, so how he could inspect vehicles is beyond me.

The potential purchaser was charged

As a purchaser I have asked the RAC to inspect a car for me. I think it cost about

Never heard of that lot. When I bought mine I used the AA and they sent a rep from some local firm but i can't remember the name. The report was very, very thorough and covered a number of smaller issues which I certainly had not spotted. Im still not sure whether they would actually spot a (serious) fault that was being hidden by a seller but it does still give you a second pair of eyes and a formal report that you can use to get the price down a bit.

Oh dear. Excellent idea Gordon - I now get to wash *your* dirty linen in public. I told you I had no experience of anythings mechanical and would need to have it inspected. Which I did.

I had reservations about your request for cash. I explained these to you.

I arranged a bank draft and had planned to travel on the Saturday morning to view the car and agree a deal if all was well with the inspection. Having got a verbal of the car from the engineer, I decided not to proceed. He said the car was in average to good condition. Your ad said immaculate. You said you had owned the car since January. DVLA said March. You said you bought it from the Glasgow Skoda dealer. They had no record of the car (either under the current plate or the previous private plate).

I would hardly consider myself someone who wasn't seriously interested in your car, given:

the cost of the inspection

the bank draught was in my hand when the engineer called with his verbal report

Given the above, I decided not to proceed. It was not a single piece of the above jigsaw that caused me not to consider buying. It was that I didn't feel that all of the pieces fitted together properly.

I'm glad you've sold your car. I hope the new owner enjoys it. I hope the faults (either alleged or real) don't spoil his enjoyment.

I know this was your first attempt at selling a car privately and it was my first attempt at buying one. Buyer beware? Absolutely!

My oh my, someone seems to have taken the hump with my post!!

Put simply, my sole aim was to ask if anyone has had experience of having an inspection carried out by this company, I am interested to find out.

Also, I cannot for the life of me understand exactly how they can apparently overcharge customers and use unqualified persons to carry out inspections; I would hate for any Briskoda members to be caught by this company.

Lets have some constructive comments on this matter.

A potential purchaser, who turned out to be a total timewaster in the end, and who had no technical knowledge whatsoever

Hmmm. Are you surprised that cra has "taken the hump" with statements like that above??

If you were posting, like you suggest to enquire about experiences with inspection companies was there any need to be so provocative? I think not.

anybody gonna be removed in this one

Is this really a valid thread, or just another way of digging at someone?

Sure looks like the latter to me.