From our reports
What we find when we inspect used cars in Bengaluru
By the InspektAI inspection team, 2 October 2026, 3 min read
Every used car on sale in Bengaluru looks good in its listing. This page is what our inspectors found underneath, drawn from 72 recent inspections, anonymised to make, model and year, plus the two reports we have published in full. We do not extrapolate from these to the whole market; they are what happened on the cars our customers asked us to look at.
The patterns, across 72 inspections
Counted from the reports, with negated phrases like “no structural issues” excluded:
- About 1 in 7 cars (10 of 72) showed active or pending engine fault codes or misfires on the scan
- 6 carried a brake-safety finding
- 2 had a warning lamp lit on the cluster: one check-engine, one airbag
- 2 had an odometer reading that contradicted the car’s own service records
- 60 of the 72 reports carried itemised repair work, from cosmetic panels to tyres and brakes
Odometers that went backwards
Kilometres only go one way, which is what makes a service record so useful.
Accidents you would never see
A good body shop leaves nothing for the eye. The paint gauge and the service book are what find it.
Safety issues sellers do not mention
The findings that matter most are often the ones a seller genuinely does not know about. An Innova Crysta with brake lights that did not work. A Celerio with the check-engine lamp on. A Polo with a faulty airbag warning. A Jeep Compass with brake pads worn to metal and discs already resurfaced once.
And plenty of good cars
Not every inspection is a horror story, and it should not be. Many cars come back with a short list of cosmetic items, and the report’s job is then to confirm the buy and hand you a fair price. The new Skoda Kylaq in our second sample report came back with one scratch on the whole car.
Frequently asked questions
How common are hidden problems in used cars?
In our reports, about 1 in 7 cars showed engine fault codes or misfires, 6 of 72 had a brake-safety finding, and 60 of 72 carried itemised repair work.
Is odometer tampering common in Bangalore?
We found 2 explicit cases in 72 inspections, both caught by comparing the odometer with the car’s own service records. It is rare, and it is expensive when it happens.
Where do these numbers come from?
From InspektAI’s own inspection reports, anonymised and counted with negated phrases excluded. They describe the cars our customers asked us to inspect, not the whole market.
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