Mobile Roadworthy Certificates in Clayfield

Your local roadworthy inspector in Clayfield

Clayfield is a straight run up Sandgate Road from our Newstead base, and from a mobile inspector's point of view it's the easiest suburb on our patch. The blocks are bigger, the driveways are long and flat, and there's usually room to walk right around the car without asking anyone to move anything. Most Clayfield jobs happen in the driveway, start to finish.

The suburb has two distinct halves. Off Junction Road, Bonney Avenue and the streets running down toward Eagle Junction there are the big interwar homes and Queenslanders on generous blocks. Along the Sandgate Road frontage and the streets behind it there's a large stock of brick unit blocks from the seventies and eighties, most with carports or a parking strip off a rear lane. The houses are the simplest jobs we do. The units need one question answered first.

That question is whether your bay is at the back of a tandem carport, because if there's another car parked in front of yours, it has to move before we can do anything.

The cars we see in Clayfield

Clayfield is family car territory. Wagons, seven-seat SUVs, the second car that does the school and sport run, and a steady supply of well-kept older cars belonging to long-term residents who've had them for years.

Family cars come to us with real kilometres on them, so the failures here are honest wear rather than neglect: brake pads and discs at the end of their life, tyres worn unevenly from a lot of stop-start driving, tired suspension bushes and shock absorbers, and windscreen chips picked up on the highway that have spread into a crack. If there's a towbar fitted, the wiring and the coupling get looked at too, and a corroded trailer plug is a surprisingly common find on a car that tows a box trailer twice a year.

The other job we do a lot of in Clayfield is the family hand-down: a car being signed over to a son or daughter who has just got their licence. That still counts as a transfer to a new owner in Queensland, so it still needs a safety certificate, and it's worth getting done properly rather than assuming a car you've owned for years is fine. It usually is. Occasionally it isn't, and it's better to find out in the driveway than on the road.

Roadworthy questions, answered

• When do I need one? When selling or transferring a registered vehicle, transferring interstate rego to Queensland, or re-registering an unregistered vehicle.
• How long is it valid? A QLD safety certificate lasts 2 months or 2,000 km (whichever comes first) for private sellers.
• Do I need to be there? We need access to the vehicle and keys for a short test drive. As long as keys are accessible, you don't have to wait around.
• What if it doesn't pass? You get a clear list of what needs attention, get it fixed by any mechanic you like, then we re-check it.
• I'm giving the car to my son or daughter. Do we still need one? Yes. Handing a car down is still a transfer to a new owner, so a safety certificate is still required. If you're unsure whether your situation needs one, call and we'll tell you straight.
• Can you just do it in the driveway? That's exactly where we'd like to do it. A flat Clayfield driveway is the best workspace in the inner north.
• My bay is behind another car in the carport. The front car needs to move, or park yours on the street for the appointment. We can't inspect a vehicle we can't drive out.