Published
Used Car Maintenance After You Buy
The day you collect a used car is day one of a history you control. Start the odometer, file the papers, and log the first jobs. Do not invent the years you were not there.
Buying a used car does not give you a complete past. It gives you a starting odometer, a folder of whatever the seller had, and a vehicle that will need work on your watch.
How to check service history on a used car is the job before you pay. This note is the week after the keys are yours: what to write so the next owner, and next year's you, can see what happened from handover onward.
RPMBase is a digital garage for the car you now own. Add the vehicle once. Store the documents you actually received. Log new work as it happens. Leave missing years blank. A tidy fake history is worse than an honest gap.
Day one: identity and kilometers
Create the car: make, model, year, and the odometer on the day you collected it. That reading is the spine of everything you add later. If the cluster and the paperwork disagree, write what the cluster showed and put the conflict in a note.
Do not backfill a pretty timeline of oil changes you cannot prove. If an old invoice has a date and kilometers, you may add that row. If it does not, skip it.
File what the seller handed you
Insurance you will replace, the inspection certificate if it is still valid, the registration, and any invoices in the glovebox belong on car documents or as service rows when they describe work.
Set reminders from the dates that are still in the future. An inspection three weeks away is more urgent than organizing 2019 receipts.
A PDF of what you received is useful. Export later, once your own first jobs are on the timeline too.
The first jobs that usually appear
Many used cars get fluids, filters, or a cautious oil change shortly after purchase because you do not trust the last sticker. Log that visit like any other: date, kilometers, what was actually done, cost. Use what an oil change includes if you need the words for the row.
Tires, brakes, and battery get looked at because they fail other people. Inspect, then log only what you replaced or paid for. A look is not a service row.
Fuel starts now. The first fill-up with the new odometer is the beginning of your economy, not the seller's.
Honesty is the product
A buyer in three years will ask what you did, not what the previous owner claimed. Your RPMBase history should answer that. Gaps before your ownership can stay gaps.
If a shop says the timing belt was done 'recently' with no invoice, do not write a belt row. Write a note that a claim was made. When to replace a timing belt is a separate decision based on evidence you have.
Download the app the week you collect the car, not the week something breaks. Empty garages are easy to start. Panic logging is how numbers get invented.