If I buy a used car from a dealership, what are the chances that the car is up to date on its recalls on date of purchase?
Is there any legal obligation on the dealership?
I live in GA.
If you buy say a BMW from a BMW dealership, the chances are pretty good any and all outstanding recalls have been done. When I was a tech, we always checked and preformed them.
If on the other hand, you buy a BMW from a VW dealership, I doubt very much if there was a check for outstanding recalls. Again when I was a tech we had no procedure to check if any other makes had outstanding recalls.
If you are buying a “certified pre-owned” used car from a dealer of that brand, I would guess that the odds of all recalls being done approach 100% as I am fairly sure that outstanding recalls is one of the items on the certified checklist (it is on ours anyway)
There is always a chance that someone didn’t get a clue, and missed one, or forgot to do one, or miss-read a VIN or whatever.
In any event a quick phone call to the car maker in question consumer help phone line can confirm any and all outstanding recalls.
If there’s an outstanding recall, just take it to the OEM dealer and they’ll deal with it. It shouldn’t be a disqualifying factor in your purchase unless it’s something like spontaneous combustion between 60 and 70 humidity and the humidity is 65% that day ;). It may be worth a discount if you know it’s not done – just for the inconvenience.