Mon - Thu 8:00 AM - 5:30 PM
Fri 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Before You Buy
An hour on our lift before you hand over the money is the cheapest hour you will spend on a used car. We work for you, not the seller, and we will tell you plainly whether to walk away.
The Michigan Rust Map
In a salt state the underside decides most purchases, and it does so before anything mechanical matters. We go in this order, and we go there first, because a bad answer at the top of this list can end the inspection in ten minutes and save you the rest.
Structural. Scaling and layered flaking here, particularly near suspension mounting points, is where a car stops being worth repairing. A body-on-frame truck gets the same look at the frame behind the cab and over the rear axle.
The rocker is structural on a unibody car and it rots from the inside where water sits. Fresh undercoating over a rocker on a private sale car is worth asking about.
Steel lines running the length of the car under the salt spray. A pitted line is a failure waiting for the first hard stop, and replacing a full set is real money that the seller has not mentioned.
Where the suspension load goes into the body. Corrosion here is both a safety issue and, on some cars, genuinely difficult to repair properly.
Mostly cosmetic, but it tells you how the car has been kept and where the rest of it is heading. Bubbling paint above an arch is rust coming out from behind, not a chip.
The cheapest thing on this list and the most reliable indicator of how many short winter trips the car has done.
A car that has spent its life somewhere without road salt can be in dramatically better structural condition than a local one of the same age and mileage, and that difference is not visible from the driver's seat. It is one of the better reasons to have somebody look underneath before you pay.
What It Catches
A car can drive beautifully around the block and still be a bad buy. These are the things we find that you cannot see from the driver's seat.
In Michigan this is the big one. Surface rust on a panel is cosmetic. Rust on the subframe, the rocker structure, the brake lines and the fuel lines is a safety issue and often the end of the car. We look underneath first, because it can settle the decision before anything else gets checked.
Overspray, mismatched panel gaps, replaced bolts, a radiator support that has been straightened. None of it shows on a history report if the work was paid for privately, and all of it changes what the car is worth.
A freshly steam cleaned engine bay on an older car is information in itself. We look for the seep that is starting again, and for the difference between a valve cover gasket and something that means the engine comes apart.
Fluid condition, shift quality under load, and adaptation data where the car stores it. A transmission that is marginal will not always show itself in ten minutes of gentle driving.
Timing belt past its interval, brakes near the wear limit, tires aged out regardless of tread, fluids never changed. Individually small, together often thousands, and all of it becomes yours the moment you pay.
Codes that were cleared just before you arrived leave a trace in the readiness monitors. If the check engine light was switched off this morning, we can usually tell.
Worth knowing
A car from a state without road salt can be structurally in far better condition than a local one of the same age with fewer miles on it, and nothing about that is visible from the driver's seat or in a history report. It is on the underside, and it takes a lift and ten minutes to find out.
Whose Side We Are On
A dealer's own inspection is done by the people selling you the car. A private seller's assurance is worth what it costs. An independent inspection is the only look at the vehicle that has nobody's interest in it but yours, and that is what you are actually buying from us.
It also means we will tell you to walk away, and we do, regularly. There is no version of this where we soften a finding because you have already fallen for the car. If the underside is gone, we will say the underside is gone.
Where the car is worth buying, the report becomes a negotiating position instead of a verdict. Four tires, brakes at the limit and a timing belt due is a real number, and a seller looking at it in writing is a different conversation from one hearing it secondhand. Plenty of customers have had the inspection pay for itself several times over right there.
How It Works
The awkward part is usually the logistics rather than the inspection. Here is how people normally do it.
The seller needs to agree to the car coming to us, and a seller who will not allow an independent inspection has told you something useful. Most dealers and most private sellers say yes.
Say it is a pre-purchase inspection when you call, because it is booked differently from a repair. Tell us the make, model and year so we know what is worth checking on that particular car.
Not a walk around the forecourt. Wheels off where it matters, underside examined properly, and a scan of the vehicle's own modules for stored and pending faults.
Green, amber and red, the same way we report on any car, with the difference that none of it is a quote for work. It is a description of what you would be buying.
Usually the most useful five minutes. What is normal wear for that model and mileage, what is a bargaining chip, and what is a reason to keep looking.
What You Get
Questions
Book It
29444 Woodward Ave, Royal Oak. Call and tell us what you are looking at, and we will tell you what is worth checking on that particular car before you put any money down.
