How many checks does a car pass before it hits the yard? A week in the M&F workshop

So today isn't about selling you a car. It's a walk-through of what actually happens to a car in our yard before it goes up for sale. This one's a 2018 Mazda 3 we bought in last Wednesday — low kays, one previous owner, about as low-risk as a Japanese hatch gets. Even so, it spent seven days in our M&F workshop in Concord before it was listed. Not seven days gathering dust — seven days going through the checks, one at a time.

First job: pull its history

The moment a car comes in, we weigh it, measure the wheelbase and log the odometer. Then the first real job: run a PPSR and Service NSW check against the rego — who owned it, how many times it's changed hands, whether there's money still owing on it, whether it's ever been written off or flood-damaged.

Illustration · First job: pull its history

You can do this bit yourself: jump on the PPSR website, pay a couple of dollars, punch in the VIN or plate, and you've got a report in minutes. A car the seller won't let you PPSR-check — no matter how good the patter — park it. Our rule is simple: if we haven't pulled its history, we don't buy it.

Up on the hoist: the bits it's hiding

A clean history is just the pass mark. Next the car goes up on the hoist and the tech walks around it a couple of times.

Illustration · Up on the hoist: the bits it's hiding

The body gets checked in four quarters — front, back, left, right — for panel gaps, paint colour mismatch, hazing on the lights. A bit of touch-up is normal; a car that's done six or seven years in Sydney without a single scuff would be the strange one. What matters is where. A respray on the edge of a guard is nothing. A respray near a chassis rail — that gets a second look.

Underneath, we're on the chassis rails, control arms, the gearbox sump and the subframe welds. A tech knows what a factory weld looks like at a glance. If the PPSR says no accident but there's a non-factory weld under there, those two don't add up — and we chase it until they do.

Under the bonnet and inside: the odometer lies, these don't

Pop the bonnet: radiator, throttle body, belts, dipstick. Here's the short version — the colour and smell of the oil on that dipstick is more honest than the number on the dash. You can wind an odometer back; you can't un-cook old oil or clean out carbon build-up.

Illustration · Under the bonnet and inside: the odometer lies, these don't

Inside, every button gets a press — aircon, electric seats, infotainment, reversing camera, every light. And one thing only an old hand watches for: whether the wear on the driver's seat and steering wheel matches the reading on the dash. A car showing 40,000 k's with a driver's seat worn shiny has almost certainly done a lot more.

A run up Parramatta Rd

Last comes the road test. Not a lap of the car park — an actual run up Parramatta Rd: cold idle, whether the gearbox shifts cleanly, whether the brakes pull to one side under hard braking, any noises on a hill climb. Some faults will never show sitting still. Get some speed up and they turn up.

Illustration · A run up Parramatta Rd

Seven checks done, all of it lands on one M&F inspection sheet: every item ticked or flagged, wear items — brake pads, tyres, belts — scored on how much life is left. That sheet decides two things: what gets replaced before the car is listed, and the final price.

The honest bit

None of this is clever, but doing it properly takes time and people. A car that fails badly, we hand back — we'd rather miss the deal. A car that passes gets its worn parts sorted first, and every check is written on the inspection sheet and laid out for you. Going over a car top to bottom like this has one aim: fewer of those "month three" surprises after you've driven it home.

Whether a yard can even do this comes down to one thing: whether it has its own workshop. Ours is called M&F, it's on site, and the techs are here every day. Since 2013, every car has been pulled apart and looked over right here before it's listed. No exceptions.

Want to see a car's full M&F inspection sheet — or have us check over one you've found somewhere else? Come by the yard or drop us a message.