The Importance of Maintenance Records
While you own your car, you should always keep a close record of maintenance. While this helps you a great deal to keep regular service items such as oil changes on track, it is arguably even more valuable when it comes time to sell your car.
If a car doesn’t have a full maintenance history backed by receipts, I don’t even bother to look at the car anymore. It just isn’t worth the hassle, and is too much of a gamble. Detailed maintenance records tell you a lot about a car and its history.
One thing that becomes readily apparent is how organized the seller is. Someone who has sporadic records of maintenance probably was also sporadic in their upkeep of the car, which is definitely not something you want to suffer the long-term consequences of as the next owner. A seller who hands you a neat, organized file full of receipts with a spreadsheet summarizing the items projects the image of someone who took care of their car day in and day out.
Since the vast majority of the fear associated with buying a used car comes from uncertainty about the vehicle’s history, keeping a log of maintenance records is a must if you want to ensure potential buyers that they have nothing to be afraid of. Basically, you don’t want to give the buyer any easy excuses to not buy your car.
Keeping maintenance records is not difficult, as long as you are systematic about it. Half of the work is just labeling a folder and making a spreadsheet to keep track of the maintenance. After that, keep putting every receipt related to the car in the folder and update the spreadsheet with a few items every time.
My suggestion for what to track in the spreadsheet includes:
- Date
- Mileage
- Description of Service
- Shop/dealership name
- Parts Cost
- Labor Cost
- Total Cost (summation of the previous two items)
In all of 30 seconds or less each time work is performed on the car, you can have a nice, organized file which could make a difference of hundreds or thousands of dollars when it comes time to sell the car. Since many buyers will not have the vehicle history recorded and neatly organized, you will raise the value of your car and differentiate it in the eyes of the buyer, encouraging them to buy from you so that they have peace of mind. Not only that – they will appreciate what you’ve done for them if they ever need to refer to the car’s history for any reason.
Feel free to use this to keep track of your car’s maintenance:
