HOW A CAR INSPECTION MIGHT HAVE SAFED A LIFE
- Alex
- Oct 18, 2017
- 2 min read
Scout My Car's mission is to ensure that our customers know everything they need to know before buying a used car!
Last week, among the cars we inspected was a 2011 Toyota FJ Cruiser. Gemma from York had found the car on Dubizzle and had requested that we inspect it car before moving on with the purchase.
Choosing to inspect the car was a sensible decision by Gemma, since the car is 7 years old, outside the warranty period and has U.S. specs.
The description of the car looked great. The list of technical features was extensive, and body and mechanical condition was specified as "Perfect inside and out".
Furthermore, the car was described as:
"FJ CRUISER 2011 Full options, Very clean car, American specifications ,low mileage for Sale 58,000 AED for a serious payers only please"
We picked up the car and took it to our garage for our 144pt pre-purchase inspection, where our paint thickness check quickly revealed that the front right side had been repainted. Further investigation found that the car must have been in a serious collision and that it was likely that the airbags would have been triggered.
The interior however had been fixed properly and there were no traces of the explosion of the airbags. Having now grown skeptical, we checked the onboard diagnostics tool, which showed several errors for the airbags. After removing the airbag covers, we found that the new airbags had not been installed properly, and that in order to suppress the airbag warning light, the mechanics had rewired the cable. In other words: the airbags wouldn't have deployed in an accident, and the warning light had been disabled!
Deployed airbags in an FJ Cruiser
Airbags have proven to reduce fatality races in frontal collisions by up to 69%, and our discovery may have saved a life in the event of an accident.
Read below what Gemma had to say about our service and remember that it's not enough to trust your gut or even the regular road safety tests. Be safe and scout it before you buy it!
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