I always let anyone perform a visual and functional inspection when I'm selling an expensive personal item, car, or whatnot. If someone wants to pay for an detailed inspection, I as a seller of course am not incentivized to shoulder the increased risk - so the inspection can be performed on site by a licensed, bonded and qualified inspector at my discretion. I have a few caveats that I've adapted from high value markets where inspections
actually make sense:
- The potential buyer must sign a contract and put up a surety bond in escrow equal to the asking price of the vehicle to cover any incidental damages that should occur during inspections that require removal of components, opening sealed systems, load testing, or any other active, "non-destructive" inspection processes.
- Upon any damage, the full amount of the asking price in escrow will be contractually released immediately to the seller. The balance, minus cost of repairs and compensation for any decrease in book value, will be contractually returned to the buyer once the repairs are affected. (This protects the seller's time preference, as the car must be taken off the market during repair)
- They must also replace, at their cost, with new OEM factory components, any factory-specified one time use bolts, seals or other components that are removed or tampered during the inspection process.
- They must bear the full cost of either laboratory fluid analysis or factory specified fluid replacement for any sealed systems opened, to ensure that contamination did not occur during inspection.
I have never had a buyer follow through with inspection on these types of low value purchases. Buyers are put off at the thought of having to shoulder the entire risk and costs of their inspection, oddly enough.
Realistically, there are three problems with inspection advice for these low value, high turnover purchases. There is no real incentive for a seller to allow inspection, as most buyers do not ask for, or are willing to pay for, an inspection - especially in these types of markets. Why?
- Allowing detailed inspection does not alter the final sale price of a vehicle in any meaningful way. There will never be a majority of buyers who will seek an inspection in low value consumer markets (most used RVs and automobiles qualify as low value purchases). The seller is usually a 1) bulk dealer or 2) a private seller who has already lost a large percentage of the sales price to depreciation - high hassle customers are not worth the trouble for either zero or very marginal returns on the sale. The relative value you bring to the table is not nearly enough to justify wasting time on the concession.
- Inspections suffer the same problem as most other mechanical service dealings with RVs and automobiles - the people (certified or otherwise) performing the service have dismal diagnostic skills on average. This is clearly demonstrated by the trouble with finding reliable, trustworthy mechanical services outside ones you may already be familiar with or have used in the past, a widespread and well known problem.
- There is no available independent data for inspectors (and likewise mechanics) that demonstrates the failure rate of inspected sales relative to non-inspected sales. This makes inspection services utterly worthless, in actuarial terms.
The likely outcome of this shopping behavior is that you will pass up vehicles with no obvious or unexpected faults, while the seller and the next-in-line buyer will happily take their money to the bank and their new RV on vacation. Class B's in particular are a fairly supply limited market - getting a seller concession is highly unlikely as it simply isn't necessary on their part to sell the vehicle for similar profit.
Apologies in advance for this particularly contrarian advice, just the facts as I see them, unfortunately.