Buying a used car in the Algarve is a market of sunshine paint and optimistic adverts. Before the money moves, put the car on our lift: OBD diagnostics with the error history read — including codes someone cleared last week, which leave traces — a paint-depth gauge that finds filler and resprayed accident panels the eye misses, a mechanical check underneath, and an honest written verdict on WhatsApp the same day. The team speaks English, Portuguese, Russian, Ukrainian and Spanish.
A seller controls the wash, the photos and the story. They don't control the numbers. The paint-depth gauge reads every panel: factory paint sits in one range, a respray in another, filler over old accident damage in a third — a rebuilt car announces itself in digits even when the finish looks flawless. The OBD scan does the same for the electronics: fault codes, the error history, and the traces left behind when someone wiped the memory before the viewing.
Then the car goes up on the lift, because the underside is where a car stops lying: leaks, corrosion, tired rubber, signs of hard repairs. We assess the mechanical condition as a whole and write down what we find — the good and the bad, in plain words.
“A seller's polish can hide a respray from your eye, but not from my gauge — panel numbers don't lie. Half of this job is having the nerve to write 'walk away' before the money moves.”
Lift, OBD scan with error history, paint-depth measurement, mechanical check — scoped to the car, priced before you commit.
The published diagnostics rate at the Loulé workshop — fault codes traced to causes, not just read out loud.
What the car is, what it will need, and whether to walk away — in plain words, in your language.
Final scope and price are confirmed at inspection — these are honest public anchors, not teaser rates.
Mobile inspectors travel out from Lisbon and bill by the kilometre, and a driveway check has a hard ceiling: nobody sees a car's underside from a seller's kerb. We're local — a working Algarve workshop with a lift, diagnostic equipment and a paint gauge that live here, not in a van.
The verdict is the product: what the car is, what it will genuinely need, and whether the honest answer is to walk away. Sometimes the best money we save you is the entire purchase price.
The written verdict lands on WhatsApp the same day — a plain-language summary you can read to the seller or use at the negotiating table, from a team that speaks English, Portuguese, Russian, Ukrainian and Spanish. We time the inspection around the seller's schedule; one message with the car's details is enough to set it up.
The lift is at our Loulé workshop (Área Empresarial), with the Almancil studio as the second address when that suits the route better. And if the car passes, it's already in the right hands — the same house washes, corrects and protects it before its first week with you.
Send the advert or the car's details on WhatsApp and we time the inspection around the seller's schedule. The written verdict follows the same day as the inspection — used-car deals don't wait, and neither do we.
OBD diagnostics with the error history — including traces of recently cleared codes — paint-depth measurement on every panel to catch resprays and filler, and a mechanical check on the lift. You get a written, plain-language verdict: what the car is, what it will need, and whether to walk away.
Yes — the team speaks English, Portuguese, Russian, Ukrainian and Spanish, and the written summary comes in plain words you can take straight to the negotiation.
Car + what you need on WhatsApp — real options with real numbers.
