Car Inspection Checklist: A Shop Walk Order

A car inspection checklist in this article is a shop's own working record, not a state inspection form. If you need the official state inspection, you complete that through your state's program. What follows is how to inspect a car in your bay in one repeatable order and write down what you found.

A car inspection checklist in walk order

Each system gets one pass, and the order below keeps you from walking back to the same wheel twice. Do the lift work together, then lower the car and move to the hood and the lights.

A checklist is only as good as the order you walk it in.

Stop 1: the vehicle record

Start with the car, not the tires. Write the RO number, date, customer name and phone, year, make, model, plate, VIN and odometer reading. The VIN has 17 characters and never uses the letters I, O or Q, so check it against the door label.

A record that starts with the vehicle is one you can find again. A sheet without a VIN is a loose page.

Stop 2: tires and wheels

Record each wheel position: left front, right front, left rear, right rear and the spare. For every position write the tread depth in 32nds of an inch, the pressure you found, the pressure you set and a wear code. Then read the DOT date on the sidewall.

The DOT date is the last four digits of the tire identification number. Under the federal rule for tire identification, those four digits give the week and the year of manufacture, so 2323 means the 23rd week of 2023. Write the date as week and year, WW/YY, next to the tread.

For tread, measure in two adjacent major grooves where the tread is thinnest, the way a state would. Washington's tire law, for instance, treats a tire as unsafe at less than 2/32 of an inch in any two major grooves at three locations around the tire. New York's inspection program uses a 2/32 inch minimum as well. Your own Attn point should sit above that, so you warn the customer early.

Stop 3: brakes

For each wheel position record the pad or shoe thickness in millimeters. For disc brakes add the measured rotor thickness and the rotor's minimum. For drums add the inside diameter and the maximum.

Take the minimums from service information for that vehicle and axle. No single number applies to every car. Add a note about condition separately, because a pad can measure fine and still be glazed.

Stop 4: steering, suspension and underbody

Check tie rods, ball joints, shocks and struts, CV boots and wheel bearings. Then look under the vehicle at brake hoses and the parking brake, the exhaust, any fluid leaks and where they are, and the frame and underbody.

Visual and hands-on rows lean on the note more than the mark. Write where the leak is.

Stop 5: under the hood

Lower the car and open the hood. Check engine oil, coolant, brake fluid, power steering fluid, transmission or CVT fluid and washer fluid for level and condition. Check drive belts, coolant and heater hoses, the engine and cabin air filters, and look for visible oil leaks.

Some fluids need the vehicle's own procedure. Check the level using the vehicle's service procedure and check point, and if the car has none, use service information.

Stop 6: the battery

Look at the terminals and the hold-down first. Then record the battery test: rated CCA (cold cranking amps), tested CCA and voltage. The Car Care Council, a non-profit car care education group, says to test the battery every fall and to consider replacing one that is three years old or more.

Set your pass point as a share of rated CCA. A battery that tests at the shop's Attn share is a conversation with the customer.

Stop 7: lights, wipers, glass and HVAC

Check headlamps on low and high, turn signals and hazards, brake lamps and the third lamp, reverse lamps, plate lamps, the horn and dash warning lamps. Then wiper operation, the windshield and glass, and heating and air conditioning.

The Car Care Council advises inspecting a car's lights at every oil change. A bulb that fails a week after a visit is the customer's first complaint, so it earns its own row.

One rule for every row

Mark one of three boxes per row. Pass means OK today. Attn means plan attention soon. Fail means repair is needed now. Add a note for the finding or the measurement that supports the mark.

Here is how the mark and the note work together on three rows.

Across the whole walk, each system records different things.

Shop inspection or state inspection

A state inspection has its own rules, its own certificate and its own inspectors. Your shop checklist has none of that. The sheet in this article tells a customer what you saw today. It does not say whether the car would pass a state test, and your Attn points belong to your shop.

A ready sheet that follows this walk order

The Multi-Point Inspection Kit is a fillable PDF set laid out in this order. Side 1 holds the vehicle record, the hood checks, the battery's visual check, lights, wipers, glass and HVAC. Side 2 holds the wheel-position measurements, brakes, battery test, steering and suspension, and underbody. A shop standards page sets your own tread, brake and battery alert points once, and they repeat in the legend on both sides. It costs $4.

When a printed checklist is the wrong tool

If you want photos attached to each finding, or a link sent to the customer's phone, a printed sheet cannot do that. Inspection software can. If you need a state certificate, only your state's program gives you one.