What to check when buying a used car privately: the printable checklist

Most bad private sales are caught in passes 1 and 2, at home, for the price of a history report. The walk-around catches most of the rest. The mechanic catches what neither of you can see.

What you get, and don’t get, in a private sale

Buying from a person is usually cheaper than buying from a lot, but you give something up. Dealer regulators don’t cover private sales: OMVIC says buyers who bought privately from a curbsider are “not protected by OMVIC, its compensation fund”, and BC’s Vehicle Sales Authority tells private buyers that if something goes wrong, they will have to go through the courts. Quebec’s consumer protection office adds that “sold as is” wording can waive your right to claim for hidden defects later.

So the checks on this page are your protection. The paperwork differs by province:

In Ontario you must register the car in your name within 6 days, and you pay 13% retail sales tax on the price or the wholesale value in the UVIP, whichever is higher. For the other provinces, see buying a used car on Kijiji, which has the transfer and tax rules side by side.

Pass 1: read the listing before you message

The listing tells you what to ask and sometimes tells you to move on.

• Year, km and trim. A listing with no mileage is hiding something or was written in a hurry. Ask before you go.
• Title status. Look for “rebuilt”, “salvage”, “as-is”, “needs safety”, “for parts” and, in Quebec, “VGR”. Often it is the last line of the description. Our guide to rebuilt and salvage cars explains what each brand means.
• Photos. Good sellers photograph the odometer, the tires and the rust they know about. Photos that crop out the lower doors and rockers are a question, not an answer.
• Who is selling. Several cars on one profile, financing wording (“OAC”, “we finance”, “$500 down”), a stock number or “plus tax and licensing” mean a dealer, or a curbsider posing as a private seller.
• The price. Far under similar cars nearby means there is a reason. Find it before you drive.

Is the price fair?

Neither site shows what cars actually sold for, so build your own comparison. Search the same model, a two-year spread and a similar km band on both Facebook Marketplace and Kijiji, and note the asking prices of the cars that have been listed longest: those are the prices that didn’t sell. Kijiji adds a price label (Great, Good, Fair or Higher price) on listings with a VIN, using CARFAX Canada data on similar vehicles. In Ontario, the UVIP’s wholesale value is a useful floor. Our guide to judging a fair price shows the method for any item.

Finding the good ones first

Clean, fairly priced private-sale cars don’t sit for long. Sort by newest, search a few times a day, and check the older listings too: a car that has sat for three weeks is one where the seller is ready to talk. When a search returns a car, check the other site for the same car; sellers often post on both at different prices.

Questions to ask the seller

Copy these into your first message. Specific questions get specific answers, and vague answers to specific questions tell you something.

• What is the VIN?
• Is the ownership in your name, and is any money owed on the car?
• Has it been in an accident or had an insurance claim? Is the title branded?
• What service records do you have? When were the brakes, tires and timing belt (if it has one) last done?
• Why are you selling?
• Does it come with winter tires? Has it been rust-proofed?
• Does it have a safety certificate, or is it sold as-is?
• Can I take it to my mechanic for a pre-purchase inspection?
• Can you leave it cold, not started, before I arrive?

Pass 2: paperwork and history checks

1. Get the VIN before you go. Seventeen characters, no I, O or Q. Decode it with NHTSA’s free decoder and confirm it is the year, make and model in the ad. Our guide to checking a VIN in Canada walks through every check.
2. Run the free stolen check. CPIC’s public search takes the VIN for cars, trucks, motorcycles, trailers, ATVs and snowmobiles. A hit means you call the police, not the seller.
3. Check liens. The UVIP in Ontario, the Personal Property Registry in BC, RDPRM in Quebec, the Vehicle Information Report in Alberta, or the Canada-wide lien search in a CARFAX Canada report. Run it again on the day you pay if days have passed.
4. Order a history report. Accidents, claims, registration history, odometer readings. Compare the km on the report with the km in the ad.
5. Check recalls. Transport Canada’s recalls database lists recalls by make, model and year. An open recall is a free repair at a dealer, not a reason to walk.
6. Get an insurance quote. Some models and most branded titles cost much more to insure. Find out now, not after you have paid.

Pass 3: the walk-around

Go in daylight, on a dry day if you can. Bring a flashlight, a magnet, paper towel and a friend.

Outside

• Panel gaps that differ side to side, paint that doesn’t quite match, overspray on rubber seals: signs of bodywork. Ask about it.
• Rust on the rocker panels, wheel arches, door bottoms, tailgate and hood edge. Bubbling paint is rust coming through.
• Tires: even wear across the tread, matching brands, and the four-digit date code on the sidewall (week and year). Uneven wear points to alignment or suspension problems.
• Glass: chips and cracks in the windshield. Lights: every one, including the brake lights (your friend helps).

Under the hood, engine cold

• Oil level and colour on the dipstick. Milky residue under the oil cap can mean a head gasket problem, or just a car used for short winter trips.
• Coolant level and colour. Leaks or crusty residue around hoses.
• Fresh engine washing on an older car can hide leaks.

Underneath

• Frame or subframe, brake and fuel lines, the exhaust and the floor pans. In salt-belt provinces, surface rust is normal. Rot, flaking metal and holes are not.
• Drips under the engine and transmission, and wet spots on the driveway where it was parked.

Inside

• Warning lights should come on at start-up, then go out. One that never lights up may have been disconnected.
• A musty smell, damp carpets, silt under the floor mats or in the spare-tire well: flood signs.
• Wear on the pedals, steering wheel and driver’s seat that matches the km. Heavy wear on a low-km car is a reason to read how to check for odometer rollback.
• Every window, lock, seat adjustment, the heat, the air conditioning and the rear defroster.

The test drive

• Cold start. Knocks, rattles, blue or white smoke, or a rough idle that smooths out once warm.
• City. Smooth shifts up and down, no clunks over bumps, no pulling under braking.
• Highway. No vibration at speed, straight tracking with a light hand on the wheel, quiet wheel bearings.
• Parking lot. Full lock both ways, listening for clicks from the CV joints.
• After. Look under the car again for new drips, and check that no warning light came on.

Pass 4: the pre-purchase inspection

A mechanic you choose, with the car on a hoist, sees the frame, suspension, brake lines and leaks properly, and can scan the computer for stored fault codes. Expect to pay for an hour or so of shop time; it is still the cheapest money in the deal. Book it at a shop near the seller if that helps them agree. A seller who refuses an inspection by a mechanic of your choice is on OMVIC’s list of curbsider signs. Whatever the reason, walk.

Use the results to negotiate. Brakes due, two tires to replace, a leaking gasket: each is a number you can put to the seller. More in how to negotiate on Marketplace.

Paying and transferring

• Never pay a deposit to hold a car you haven’t seen. Kijiji’s own advice: “Never send a deposit before inspecting the vehicle.” This is the most common way car buyers lose money; see the deposit scam.
• Pay at a bank. Meet at a branch and do the transfer or draft there, or use a bank draft the seller verifies by calling the issuing bank on a number they look up. Many police services have exchange zones for the handover.
• Get a bill of sale with the date, price, VIN, make, model, year, both names and addresses, and both signatures.
• Transfer the ownership at your province’s registry within its deadline, insure the car before you drive it, and keep copies of everything.

The one-page checklist

Print this page, or save it to your phone, and tick it off at the viewing.

Before the meetup, with Sift

Pass 1 is where most time goes: scrolling past dealer stock, rebuilt titles and cars you already ruled out. Sift, a free browser extension for Facebook Marketplace and Kijiji, does that pass on a computer. In Options, Start a hunt › Car saves a preset with the vehicle filters on, branded titles hidden, dealers hidden and already-seen listings dimmed.

• Year range and maximum km, read from the site’s vehicle details and from the text (“150K km”).
• Branded titles hidden: salvage, rebuilt, flood, as-is and for parts, including French terms such as VGR.
• Dealers hidden or tagged “Dealer”, from Kijiji’s own flag and wording like “OAC” and “stock #”.
• Price context: Kijiji’s CARFAX-based price label where it shows, Sift’s Below typical, Typical and Above typical badge on narrow searches, and price-drop badges with each car’s price history.
• “Check this” flags for deposits, e-transfer first, “text me at” and sellers who are away, and good signs for one owner, service records, a clean Carfax and no accidents.
• Alerts: “Watch this search” checks a saved Kijiji search as often as every 15 minutes and only notifies you about cars that pass your filters.

Sift reads only what the listing says. It does not decode or check VINs, pull Carfax reports, search liens, check stolen-vehicle databases, verify odometers or prove whether a seller is a curbsider; passes 2 to 4 are still yours. It runs in Chrome, Edge and Brave on a computer.