If the service interval is only mileage-related, the car may not yet be due for one. When I bought my ex-rental 207 from a Peugeot dealer with 13K on the clock, the service record only showed a label stating that it was ex-Peugeot and satisfied the warranty conditions. The selling dealer carried out a service before purchase.

Your car may not have reached that stage, but I would have expected your seller to have sold you a freshly-serviced car anyway. Did you ask for that to be done?

I contacted a Citroen local dealership to enquire if the car had been there at all and they said No but it would be a needle in a haystack trying to establish where the previous owner had it serviced at.

Also... In the servicing book the first box has a date roughly a year after purchase and a mileage figure entered. But no stamp etc.

[a] I think a 1- or 2-year-old car sold by a 'dealer' should have come with a fresh service anyway. If they had not done one you should ask for it. Get written confirmation that the warranty is still valid.

[b] your V5 document should indicate the previous owner, which may help, but it's quite likely to have been a fleet or rental company. Point [a] applies more strongly, as fleets offload young cars before they incur any servicing costs.

Almost every time somebody writes on this forum about servicing and oil changes( new cars or old)-Honest John's mantra is an OIL CHANGE EVERY 12 MONTHS.

Service history or no service history-In this instance I am amazed that any vehicle of this age can be sold without a selling dealer giving it a service "once over"-regardless of what was in the "book". By NOT doing it he has possibly raised suspicion?

Years ago- I remember going to see an 18month old 1994 Peugot 405 and the salesman saying-"We always prepare our cars with a "190" point check bla bla bla"-I remember asking does that include a full service and oil change and got a negative answer because the vehicle was "not due" a service . I walked away.

More recently I heard of a friend who had just bought a 15 month old Audi Q3 without a service .He asked the salesman when the service/oil change was due and was told " The car's internal diagnostics will indicate on the "dashboard" when the oil is sufficiently in need of changing ( or some such). He believed the salesman. I would too-but I would still ask for an oil change before parting with my cash.

Edited by Dogfuzz on 27/05/2018 at 17:19