Skip to content
KickTyres

How-tos

How to check a used car yourself

The checks worth doing with your own hands before you spend the money , what to look at, what a bad one looks like, and what it costs when it has already gone.

Showing Australian articles first.Reading from New Zealand?

Cars parked on a Wellington street strewn with silt and broken rock after flooding, the nearest one with a damaged front bumper
8 min read

How to spot a flood-damaged car

A car that has been under water can look and drive perfectly on the day you see it, then produce electrical faults for years afterwards. These are the checks that find one, in the order worth doing them.

Read
A dual-cab Toyota HiLux fitted with an aluminium tray, a toolbox canopy, a roof rack and gas bottles, parked on a bush track
8 min read

How to tell if a used ute has been worked to death

Two dual-cabs with the same badge, the same year and the same odometer can be thousands of dollars apart in what they are actually worth. Here are the checks that separate them, in the order to do them, before you hand over anything.

Read
A toothed rubber timing belt, showing the moulded teeth that engage the camshaft and crankshaft pulleys
7 min read

How to check a cambelt before you buy

A cambelt that lets go can destroy the engine on a lot of cars. It is also one of the few big-ticket items you can investigate yourself in ten minutes, before you have spent anything.

Read