What to check before you take delivery

Set the conditions first

Ask for delivery during daylight, outdoors, and not on a Saturday evening when the showroom is running three handovers at once. Paint defects are effectively invisible under showroom lighting and impossible to see in the dark.

Give yourself a clear half hour. If they can’t accommodate that, reschedule. A car is a multi-lakh purchase and the inspection is the last moment it’s fully in your favour.

The body and paint

Walk the whole car twice, once from a few feet back looking along the panels for ripples or mismatched reflections, once up close.

• Check panel gaps are even on both sides — bonnet, doors, boot.
• Look along each panel at a shallow angle for dents, swirl marks or overspray.
• Check the roof. Almost nobody does, and it is where transport damage shows.
• Look under the bumpers and along the sills for scuffs from loading.
• Photograph anything you find, with the car and the defect in the same frame.

Under the bonnet and inside

Check the manufacturing date on the compliance plate. A car built many months ago has been standing somewhere, and that’s a legitimate basis to ask for a discount or a fresh battery.

Inside, check every window, every lock, the infotainment, the reversing camera, the air conditioning on full, and every seat adjustment. Pair your phone. Open the boot and confirm the spare, jack and tool kit are all present.

The paperwork

Match the chassis and engine numbers on the car against the invoice and the insurance policy. A mismatch here’s a serious problem later and a trivial one to catch now.

Confirm the insurance start date, the IDV, and that every accessory you paid for is both fitted and itemised. If something was promised verbally and isn’t on the invoice, it doesn’t exist.

What to do if you find something

Don’t sign. That’s the whole of it. A defect found before the handover is a warranty repair the dealer arranges; the same defect found the next morning is a conversation where you’re asking for a favour.

Nothing here requires you to be an expert. It requires you to be unhurried. If you’d rather have someone do it with you, that’s what our delivery-day assistance is for.