A tidy car makes a good first impression, but when you’re selling to Cars24, it’s the service records that help us understand how it’s really been looked after.
There’s a pretty standard order most people follow when getting a car ready to sell. Give it a wash, vacuum the seats, clear out the boot and hunt down the spare key. The service book? That’s usually the last thing anyone thinks about.
And look, we get it. Paperwork isn’t exactly thrilling. But when you’re selling to us here at Cars24, a logbook or a folder of old invoices actually does some heavy lifting. It backs up everything you tell us about how the car’s been looked after.
Now, a full service history won’t guarantee you a particular price on its own. We’re also weighing up age, kilometres, condition and what the used market’s doing right now, and we’ll still give the car a proper inspection either way. But the records genuinely count for something, so it’s worth pulling yours together before we get eyes on the vehicle.
What can the service history actually tell us?
A car can come in freshly detailed and looking like a million bucks. Doesn’t tell us a thing about when the oil was last changed, whether that major service actually happened, or what the mechanic spotted when it was up on the hoist.
That’s where the paperwork earns its keep. We’re looking at dates, odometer readings, which workshop did the work and what exactly they did. Put together, it lets us track how the car’s been maintained over time.
Say you’ve got a car sitting on 90,000 kilometres. Regular service stamps and a recent brake invoice give us real context to work with. We’re still checking those brakes ourselves, but now we know what’s already been done and roughly when.
That’s the whole point of a solid car maintenance history when you’re selling to Cars24. It gives the inspection some backstory instead of starting from scratch.
What should you actually bring along?
Start with the service book itself. A decent entry usually has a date, a kilometre reading and the workshop’s details attached to it. Hang onto the invoices too, since they’ll often spell out the exact work and parts used.
If you’re driving something newer, chances are there’s a manufacturer app, owner portal or workshop system tracking all this digitally. Pull that history up on your phone, or grab a downloaded copy ahead of time.
Worth gathering together:
- the original logbook or service book
- digital service records
- itemised workshop invoices
- receipts for any major mechanical repairs
- paperwork for relevant warranty or recall work
You don’t need to dig up every single docket you’ve ever been handed. Just bring what actually explains the maintenance, repairs or current state of the car.
Got it serviced independently? Keep that invoice
A dealership stamp isn’t the be-all and end-all here. The ACCC’s motor vehicle guidance makes clear that your Australian Consumer Law consumer guarantee rights don’t hinge on whether a dealership did your servicing. Worth checking any separate warranty terms on your specific car though.
An invoice from an independent workshop is just as much a part of the record. Ideally it names the vehicle, the date, the kilometres and the work carried out. That tells us a whole lot more than someone saying their mate serviced it, with nothing written down to back it up.
How to check your service history before inspection day
This is one you want sorted before the actual inspection. Old invoices have this habit of vanishing into whatever “safe place” you filed them in three years back.
Work through the logbook in order and line it up against the manufacturer’s recommended schedule for your model and year. Service intervals aren’t one size fits all, so it pays to check the handbook.
Try searching your email for your rego number, the workshop’s name or the phrase “service invoice”. Have a look through the owner portal as well. Plenty of workshops will resend missing invoices once you’ve confirmed you own the car.
Once you’ve done that check, get everything into date order. A physical folder for printed documents and a separate one on your phone works fine. Just don’t stamp anything in yourself, guess at dates, or pass off a partial record as complete. An honest gap in the history is far easier for us to work with than a record that doesn’t quite add up.
Does a full service history actually lift your valuation?
It can help, particularly when it shows a long, consistent pattern of maintenance. What it isn’t is an automatic bonus tacked onto the price.
Between two fairly similar cars, the one backed by proper service and repair records gives us more to work with and less guesswork. That can genuinely factor into how we assess it.
That said, the inspection might still turn up worn tyres, some body damage or overdue mechanical work. Make, model, variant, age, kilometres and current market demand are all still part of the valuation too. Which is exactly why we can’t put a fixed dollar figure on a complete logbook.
Bring it along anyway. Good records help us properly understand the car in front of us, and that’s really what matters.
Should you get a service done right before selling?
If there’s a scheduled service due, getting it sorted gives you a current invoice and means you’re handing over a car with that maintenance freshly completed. Whether it stacks up financially is a different question altogether. Don’t assume every dollar spent at the workshop lands straight back in your valuation.
Same logic applies to repairs. A warning light, a strange noise or a known fault shouldn’t be hidden away, but that doesn’t mean you need to start greenlighting work left and right hoping it bumps the price. Find out what’s actually going on, hang onto the quote or invoice, and give us honest information about the car’s condition. From there, we can properly assess the vehicle that’s actually being offered up. A last-minute service makes sense when it’s genuinely due. It’s not going to stand in for years of earlier history, though.
What if you’ve only got part of the history?
Bring what you’ve got.
Cars change hands, people move house, workshops shut down and logbooks go missing along the way. A gap of a year doesn’t make the rest of your invoices worthless. If you can show the last three services, that’s still useful information for us.
Dig through old emails, dealership systems or previous workshops where you can, then just be upfront about what’s still missing. If there’s a service due right now, go ahead and get it done. One fresh visit won’t recreate years of earlier records, but it’s still worth having.
Selling a car without any service history
No logbook, no invoices? You can still kick off the process with us. We’ll ask for service history where it exists, but the car still goes through inspection and verification regardless, and any purchase remains subject to our acceptance criteria. No records simply means less evidence to work with. It doesn’t automatically mean the car’s been neglected.
Just tell us what you actually know and skip the guesswork. If you handled the servicing yourself, bring along genuine parts and fluid receipts, and be upfront about who did what.
Service history and car history aren’t the same thing
The names sound almost identical, but they’re covering completely different ground.
Service history is about maintenance and repairs. A Cars24 car history check, on the other hand, looks at things like a recorded security interest, stolen status or whether the car’s been written off. People still say “REVS check” out of habit, though the national register these days is the PPSR. Our REVS and PPSR guide walks through exactly how that works.
A PPSR result won’t tell you whether the scheduled services actually happened. And a spotless logbook won’t reveal whether a lenders registered a security interest against the car. They’re genuinely separate pieces of the puzzle.
What documents do you need to sell your car?
Have your proof of identity, your registration or ownership details and whatever service records you’ve got on hand ready to go. If there’s still finance owing on the car, we’ll need those payout details too. Exactly what’s required can shift depending on the vehicle and how the sale plays out, so our team will confirm what applies to your particular situation.
Track down the owner’s manual and every key that came with the car while you’re at it. Trust us, the spare key is a lot easier to find now than it will be on handover day.
Where service history fits into the Cars24 process
It all kicks off online with your rego or VIN, your state, kilometres and the car’s condition. From there you might get an initial online valuation. Worth remembering that’s an early estimate, not the final number you’ll walk away with.
Keen to keep going? We’ll arrange an inspection and verification. This is exactly where that service book and those invoices start pulling their weight, giving us the history while we check out the car as it stands right now.
If the car gets approved, we’ll come back with the post-inspection amount and it’s your call whether to go ahead. Once both sides are happy, we sort the paperwork, transfer payment to your nominated bank account (subject to normal bank processing times) and lock in the handover.
And that’s really all your service folder needs to do. Give us a clear, believable picture of the car. Pull together what you’ve got, chase up what you reasonably can, and be honest about anything that’s missing. It’ll tell us a lot more than a spotless bonnet and a line about how the car’s “never missed a beat”.
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