Has the vehicle you are considering purchasing been well maintained? This is an essential question to ask yourself, to avoid having to face unexpected expenses on the used car you purchased. Find out how to know the maintenance history of a car .
The maintenance log and garage invoices attest to servicing in accordance with the manufacturer’s recommendations, while a technical inspection without faults indicates good maintenance for used cars over 4 years old.
✅ The manufacturer’s obligation to provide a maintenance booklet applies to all new vehicles sold within the European Union. If you import a used car from an EU member state, you can check that the service intervals are respected.
❌ The Histovec site provides information on the history of the vehicle registered in France but gives little information on the maintenance of the vehicle.
How to know the history of a car: the maintenance log
The maintenance booklet is attached to a new car as soon as it leaves the factory. This document drawn up by the manufacturer is therefore specific to the make and model of the vehicle. It is given to the buyer by the dealer in paper and/or digital format. The manufacturer notes advice, the recommended servicing and frequency . For example, the following checks should be carried out every 10,000 km or, failing that, every 2 years for low mileage drivers:
During the various revisions and repairs carried out, the garage affixes its stamp and the date on the logbook. By consulting this logbook, a potential buyer can in particular ensure that the operations recommended by the manufacturer have been followed . However, the regularity of these operations is a guarantee of greater longevity and safety. In addition, compliance with the schedule of revision and maintenance operations is mandatory, to preserve the manufacturer’s warranty of a minimum duration of 2 years. On the other hand, since European regulation n°1004/2002, these operations can be carried out outside a manufacturer’s workshop.
In addition to the car’s maintenance logbook or, failing that, if it has been lost, it is useful to have the garage invoices. Indeed, like the logbook, these invoices indicate the date of the maintenance operation, the mileage and an identification of the vehicle (registration number and VIN code also known as the serial number). In addition, the following are mentioned:
An indication of the authenticity of the maintenance logbook and garage invoices: the handwriting and stamp must be identical on these two documents.
How to check a car’s maintenance history from technical inspections?
The Histovec site is a site set up in 2019, following a recommendation from road safety associations and managed by the Ministry of the Interior. The request for a report on this site is made from information present on the registration document (the registration certificate).
Originally, the Histovec site only included data from the registration file (date of first entry into service, technical characteristics of the vehicle, absence of pledge, etc.). Since January 2021, it also mentions the history of technical inspections: date, result and mileage recorded.
This last piece of information allows you to monitor the evolution of the mileage and its consistency with the vehicle’s counter. In addition, by comparing the mileage recorded during the inspection of the maintenance log and the garage invoices, it is possible to verify that the manufacturer’s recommendations regarding the frequency have been followed. But to find out more, it is necessary to have the technical inspection reports, which provide detailed information on the condition of the vehicle.
When selling a car over 4 years old, the seller is required to provide the buyer (unless they are a professional in the automotive sector) with a technical inspection report less than 6 months old or less than 2 months old, if a second inspection is necessary due to major faults (at the buyer’s expense).
It is also interesting to look at any minor faults, faults that do not affect safety or the environment, such as very little play in the steering column, a faulty windscreen wiper, a non-functioning anti-theft system, etc. Reading the list of possible faults therefore gives clues about the level of maintenance of the car.
For older vehicles, the ideal is to have the history of technical inspections, to check that the seller has had minor faults repaired between two inspections.
In the presence of a critical fault and in the absence of repairs validated by a second inspection, the vehicle is immobilized on the day of the inspection at midnight and can only be transferred to a professional in the automotive sector.
