Questions that come up most

Because the measurements travel and the names do not. A seat base of 455 mm is too short in any badge, and a payload of 580 kg is a problem whatever is written on the tailgate. Describing cars by type also stops this site becoming a place where people argue about brands instead of reading numbers. If you need to know which specific car a note refers to, telephone the ask desk and we will tell you.

Three working days for a single session, five for a long-run measurement, and about eight for a full comfort file because the figures have to be compared across four cars. If a session throws up something we cannot explain, we go back and measure again rather than publish a guess, and then it takes longer.

Yes, and roughly half of what we do is exactly that. The touring readiness package is built around it. We run your car through the same loop and the same instruments as a new one, which usually finds two or three cheap improvements: the right tyre pressure for your real load, a cabin filter that has not been changed, a seat position nobody ever adjusted properly.

No. Not a fee, not a loan car, not a tank of fuel, not an invitation. It is the reason the fees on this site look higher than free advice, and it is the reason a note occasionally says that a car is not worth its asking price. We would rather be paid by the reader than by the seller.

Often more useful. A comfort fitting done early tells you which body styles are already eliminated, which narrows a year of looking down to a handful of candidates. It also means that when a good second-hand example appears you can act in two days instead of starting from nothing.

Fuel, mostly, and distance. The loop uses about 38 litres, so the pump price moves the fee. If we have to travel to a car outside the city we add the running cost of that trip at an indicative R6.80 a kilometre. Nothing is added after the fact: the figure you are quoted before the session is the figure on the sheet.

We do not arrange any of them and we are not licensed to advise on them. What we will do is read a service plan or a maintenance plan with you and explain what it covers, and tell you what we have seen comparable cars sell for locally so that the number you are offered has some context.

Telephone the ask desk on +27 51 430 92 68 during the hours on the contact page, or send the form with the car, the kilometres you drive a year and what is currently uncomfortable. Sessions in the frost window at first light fill up quickly because there are only so many mornings cold enough to be worth using.