[Conquistador]

Interesting little article. I had this exact thought when I bought a bike from the bike equivalent of one of these huge car supermarket places about a month ago.

I asked for some detailed pictures of the bike to be emailed to me before I committed to traveling up to Macclesfield to buy it, and the dealer sent back loads of pictures as well as scans of every bit of the service history as well as a scan of the full V5C with the previous owner's name and address which I thought was a bit odd. Went up to the dealer and was left to my own devices with the bike and the bulging service history folder including the V5C again for me to thumb through for as long as I liked, and it got me thinking whether there are any exemptions to GDPR rules for places such as that. It has full manufacturer main dealer service history so I was also able to phone one of the main dealers to verify this but I'm sure that wouldn't be practical if it wasn't the case or there was history of services and maintenance carried out elsewhere. David's example of the gearbox seems accurate - I don't think many of us here would trust an Audi main dealer overhauling a D2 S8's gearbox but would be perfectly happy having a ZF-approved place such as Mackie's doing the work.

The Picasso painting analogy in that article sums it up quite well I think. Buying a used car, one needs to see evidence of any previous service history and essential maintenance.