Car Supermarkets – How reliable are Cinch’s Checks?
Cinch is another well-advertised car supermarket eager to make your life easier when you next buy a car. They offer part-exchange and finance options with the purchase process all completed online.
Cinch is another well-advertised car supermarket eager to make your life easier when you next buy a car. They offer part-exchange and finance options with the purchase process all completed online. Indeed, you can receive your new vehicle in as little as 72 hours. And if you’re not happy for any reason, Cinch’s 14-day money-back guarantee means if you change your mind, you won’t be out of pocket. They also helpfully include a free 90-day warranty and three days of driveway insurance.
According to their FAQs, Cinch says that all their vehicles go through comprehensive, thorough checks called HPI (Hire Purchase Investigation). Effectively, they’ve checked to ensure that the cars they sell don’t have any outstanding finance, haven’t been written off, or were previously badly damaged. In addition, Cinch also carries out its own 225 point inspection, which, in their own words, “..means inspecting everything you’d expect and more – from bonnet to boot.”
This should provide comfort that your new car is in perfect working order and completely safe to drive, and indeed, their 14-day money-back guarantee and 90-day warranty appear to back this up. However, Cinch doesn’t state whether they provide the 225 point inspection report on request, so it’s highly recommended to ask the question before purchasing and conducting as much research beforehand.
The company carries out a basic HPI history check on all their cars, which only flags up basic information. It’s essential you carry out your own research and checks if you’re looking to avoid buying a lemon!
Specifically, Cinch’s history check investigates whether any finance is outstanding on the vehicle. It also checks whether it’s previously been written off by an insurance company or recorded as badly damaged. Consequently, Cinch doesn’t check everything, such as mileage anomalies or whether a car has been stolen or scrapped.
Cinch are a little ambiguous on what service history will be supplied with their vehicles. They state that “all cars will be serviced in line with how old they are and how many miles are on the clock.” However, as the vehicles they sell are second-hand, it is likely that some cars will be missing full-service history records or the official stamps confirming completion of a service. Consequently, if a full-service history is essential to you, it’s always best to ask the question before committing to purchase.
Cars that have been officially written off (category N D) won’t appear in Cinch’s inventory, so you can be confident that write-offs aren’t for sale on their website.
Cinch appears to carry out the basic checks before putting their vehicles up for sale, but as you can’t be too safe where cars are concerned, some below-par automotives may slip through the net. With a Motorscan history check, you receive 80+ data points on a vehicle, including:
For a fully comprehensive car history, Motorscan checks vehicles against multiple databases. In addition, these extensive checks allow us to quickly deliver the complete history of any car, obtaining crucial data from the DVLA Vehicle checking service, MIAFTR insurance database, the PNC and Experian in just seconds. By carrying out this type of full car history check, you can be confident you’ve done your homework.
With Motorscan, you can obtain basic information about a vehicle for free. This can be super helpful if all you need is to check very basic car information. However, our premium paid options bring you vital facts about a car, allowing you to double-check Cinch’s findings against a more comprehensive report. And our 5-vehicle check option works out at just £5.99 per vehicle; that’s ultimately a very insignificant price to pay for peace of mind!
