Driving and selling on the northside
Gympie Road
Gympie Road is the northside's main road out of the city, lined with shops, car yards, factories and motels, and it carried the Bruce Highway until the Gateway Bridge opened in 1986. A daily crawl along it is stop-start driving, which RACV counts as harder use for servicing.
Buying from a car yard
A car from a licensed dealer comes with Queensland's statutory warranty: 3 months or the first 5,000km for a class A car (under 160,000km and built no more than 10 years before sale), 1 month or 1,000km for class B. Give the warrantor written notice of any defect.
Kerbside repairs
Most of the northside is in the City of Brisbane, where council's local law keeps vehicle repairs off roads and footpaths, apart from emergencies like a flat tyre or a flat battery. Past the Pine River on the Bruce Highway, you're in the City of Moreton Bay, with its own local laws.
How a Queensland safety certificate works
In Queensland the certificate is the seller's job. You can advertise a registered car without one, but you need a current certificate before you sell it to anyone other than a dealer, and it goes to the new owner. The transport department says you can be fined over $700 for selling without one.
From a private seller it lasts 2 months or 2,000 km after it's issued, whichever comes first, and a single certificate covers 1 transfer. The government's Find an AIS search can filter for stations that offer a mobile inspection, which is what most people mean by a mobile roadworthy. Choose "Roadworthy or safety check" in the card and say in the note if you'd like it done where the car is.
The department is clear that the inspection is not a full mechanical check. If you're the buyer, a pre-purchase inspection in Brisbane looks far deeper.
Before the inspection: your part and the mechanic's
You can
- Walk round with someone and check every light, indicator and the brake lights
- Look at tyre tread and sidewalls, and set the pressures on a cold car
- Check the windscreen for chips or cracks in the driver's view, and the wipers
- Clear out the boot and cabin so nothing's in the inspector's way
Leave to the mechanic
- Brakes, steering and suspension
- Rust or damage in the body and underneath
- Anything that needs fixing before the certificate can be issued
Our take
If we were selling a northside car, we'd sort the lights, tyres and windscreen first, then arrange the inspection close to listing it. That way the 2 months doesn't run out while the ad's still up.