Used car has three different tyre brands and a very fresh oil change Used Car

Mismatched tyres mostly mean an owner who replaced them one at a time when they failed, which is normal and cheap rather than sinister. What matters is what is actually on the car: check tread depth across each tyre with a gauge, check the two on the same axle at least match each other in type and size, and read the four digit date code on the sidewall. Six year old tyres with plenty of tread are still tyres you need to replace.

The fresh oil is the one I would look at harder, not because changing oil is bad but because it removes evidence. Fresh oil quietens a tired engine for a few hundred kilometres and hides colour and smell.

So make the cold start non negotiable. Turn up fifteen minutes early, put your hand on the bonnet before you knock, and if it is warm, reschedule. A car that has been warmed up before you arrive is the single most useful red flag in the whole process. Then pull the dipstick yourself and look at the oil cap underside for mayonnaise, and check the coolant.

Also ask about the missing stamps since 2023. Very often it is a perfectly good independent garage and paper invoices in a drawer.

Whatever else you conclude, price in the tyres. Four decent tyres on a hatchback is 400 to 600 depending on size, and that is a real cost you are inheriting in the next year. Take it off your offer with the gauge readings in your hand rather than as a vague grumble, and you will usually get some of it.

Pay for an independent inspection. Between 100 and 200 in most places, they put it on a lift, and they find the things neither of you can see from a driveway, corrosion on subframes, weeping seals, a previous repair. On a purchase of several thousand it is the cheapest insurance in the process and a seller who refuses to allow one has told you everything.

Slightly against the grain: the mismatched tyres bother me more than the oil. Someone buying the cheapest available tyre four separate times is usually someone buying the cheapest available everything, and brakes and fluids are less visible than rubber.