Make sure your car is up to safety regulations and industry standards with the help of the Pre-delivery inspection checklist. Keep track of inspection passes and fails all in one place, and use digital checklists to make delivery inspection more effective and secure with Lumiform’s free app.
By Max Elias | November 10, 2023 | Reading time: 8minutes
The pre-delivery inspection (or PDI) ensures that a newly purchased vehicle is roadworthy and safe before it is handed over to the customer. It is usually carried out at the dealership, where the inspectors evaluate every aspect of the vehicle, such as the engine compartment and electrical controls, as well as the fuel and exhaust system.
A delivery inspection also includes a road test to ensure that the general steering and handling, transmission, and brakes are in perfect condition.
One of the many benefits of performing a pre-delivery inspection checklist for a car is any minor defects can be repaired on-site during the inspection, saving time and money by preventing costly recalls and increasing customer satisfaction.
A PDI checklist is used to evaluate vehicle operating conditions and compliance with safety regulations before sale to customers. Once the vehicle is ready to be put on the market, it goes through a last round of inspections to ensure quality standards are met and upheld as well as prevent subquality goods from damaging the company’s reputation.
1. 4 steps for pre-delivery inspection
2. Pre-delivery checklist improves customer satisfaction
2. Consequences of an incorrect pdi inspection
3. Advantages of the Lumiform app for pre-delivery inspection
2. Interior
3. Engine compartment
4. Bottom side
An effective delivery inspection also includes checking the owner’s manual, service passport, warranty booklet, and instructions before the vehicle is handed over to the customer. It is also necessary to carry out the recommended 10-kilometer road test on both city streets and the highway to assess the overall performance of the vehicle.
New cars are expensive, and depending on what type, model, and make you’re purchasing, they can easily run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars range. It’s true that most of us won’t be spending that kind of money when purchasing a car, but that doesn’t by any means make them cheap.
But there’s a reason why people chose to fork up the extra cash and buy new instead of used—newer safety features, no milage, no corrosion or rust, no chance of undocumented accidents, it’s cleaner, and comes in pristine condition—to name a few benefits.
And to ensure delivery on those benefits, every vehicle will undergo a final round of inspections with the help of a PDI template. Here’s how the use of a PDI sheet can improve the overall customer experience:
There’s nothing worse than buying a brand new car only to drive it off the lot and immediately have the dreaded orange glare of ‘check engine light blink into your peripheral vision. After spending thousands of dollars, customers expect perfection. And they should. One of the contributing factors to buying new instead of used is for the guarantee that everything is in pristine, working condition. Anything less than that and next time they’ll be driving over to your competitor’s lot.
On average, a pre-delivery car inspection takes about two hours to complete. After all the benefits of customer satisfaction that can be reaped from performing a simple PDI check that takes less than two hours of a maintenance inspector’s time, it will be well worth the extra effort.
In order to perform a pre-delivery inspection correctly, sometimes a dealership will write up a standard operating procedure (or SOP), or in this case, a pre-delivery inspection checklist, to ensure each car gets the same level of attention, service, and care per inspection.
It’s of utmost importance the consumer receives a vehicle that has had a proper pre-delivery inspection done by a trained professional. Failure to do so could have severe ramifications on consumers’ health and jeopardize your business’s integrity.
Here’s a list of risks company’s take on when they don’t do their due diligence:
To avoid your business from falling prone to any of these risks, create an SOP for pre-delivery inspections, so all your inspectors know exactly what to check for each and every time. One way to streamline the process is to employ a paperless system. A digital checklist will guarantee all documents are easily accessible and all in one place, making inspections easier and more efficient.
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With Lumiform’s mobile app, you can easily conduct any kind of quality and safety inspection via tablet or smartphone – online or offline. With the desktop software, you can create checklists and evaluate the data collected in the field. This significantly reduces the risk of quality loss, accidents at work, documentation errors and damage to reputation.