Vehicle inspection services Click Mechanic, RAC/AA or other?

[Mrinsignia]

I am looking at buying a vehicle for about £15k. I'm conscious that a private sale is pretty much sold as seen so I would like to get any purchase checked over. I have found a national service called click mechanic who do indepth pre purchase checks, has anyone used them? Alternatively has anyone used AA/RAC or similar?

[Countdown]

I used the AA one for my wife's XC60.

From memory it cost something like £200 and it was a fairly comprehensive report, followed up by a phone call. IIRC the car cost £19k so I just wanted some peace of mind. I thought it was good service and would use again if buying private.

[ZX10R NIN]

I've had people use both of them & they seem to do a decent job if there are certain potential issue with the car you're looking at you can ask them to take a closer look at those if possible of course.

[samoht]

Having used ClickMechanic & AA, I would go with AA or RAC next time.

ClickMechanic disclaim any responsibility for the service the assigned mechanic provides, whereas AA or RAC will take responsibility.

Based on my own experience, whatever option you take don't expect them to find every issue with the car, or that you won't find things that need money spending on once you've bought it, but it's a lot better than nothing and better than most people could do themselves.

(IMO the gold standard is to have the car taken to a good garage that specialises in those cars and properly checked on a ramp, but this may be unrealistic with a private purchase).