The Used Car Recon Checklist Canadian Stores Actually Use

A checklist is only half the job

Search "used car recon checklist" and you'll find plenty of lists of tasks. The tasks are the easy part — most stores already know what a car needs. What separates a 5-day store from a 10-day store isn't a better list of items; it's owning the handoff between each item so the car never sits waiting for the next person to find out it's their turn.

So here's the checklist, stage by stage — with the handoff that has to fire at the end of each one called out, because that's where the days actually live.

Stage 1 — Intake

• [ ] Vehicle entered in inventory / DMS the day it's acquired
• [ ] VIN, mileage, and trim confirmed
• [ ] Keys, books, and second key accounted for
• [ ] Photos of arrival condition (protects you on later damage disputes)

Handoff: the unit is flagged for inspection the same day — not when someone walks past it on the back lot.

Stage 2 — Inspection

• [ ] Full safety inspection completed
• [ ] Mechanical and wear items documented (brakes, tires, fluids, battery)
• [ ] Recommended work written up as priced lines
• [ ] Photos of anything that needs a decision

Handoff: the finished inspection goes straight to the manager for approval — this is the single most common place to lose days. (More on that in why recon approvals take days.)

Stage 3 — Approval

• [ ] Manager reviews lines and total spend
• [ ] Work approved, declined, or adjusted line by line
• [ ] Decision and approver logged with a timestamp

Handoff: approved work is queued for the shop immediately; declined lines are closed out so nobody re-does them.

Stage 4 — Mechanical

• [ ] Approved repairs completed
• [ ] Parts holds tracked (a car waiting on parts should be visible, not lost)
• [ ] Repair order costed and closed

Handoff: a closed RO tells body/detail the car is ready for them — the same minute, not tomorrow. (See the PBS repair order workflow for how this flows through the DMS.)

Stage 5 — Body & sublet

• [ ] Paintless dent repair / paint / glass completed or sent out
• [ ] Sublet work tracked with a return date
• [ ] Vehicle inspected on return before moving on

Handoff: returned units are flagged for detail immediately.

Stage 6 — Detail

• [ ] Full interior and exterior detail
• [ ] Final quality check against retail standard
• [ ] Any touch-ups sent back before sign-off

Handoff: detailed cars are queued for photos the same day.

Stage 7 — Photos & frontline

• [ ] Sales photos taken
• [ ] Vehicle listed online
• [ ] Physically moved to the front line
• [ ] Pre-delivery inspection (PDI) ready for when it sells

Handoff: sales is notified the unit is live and ready to sell.

The handoffs are the real checklist

Notice the pattern: every stage ends with the same risk — the work is done, but the next person doesn't know yet. A paper or spreadsheet checklist captures the tasks but does nothing about the waiting between them, which is why those checklists quietly die during a busy week.

A recon workflow turns each handoff into an automatic trigger — a completed step queues and timestamps the next one — so the checklist runs the process instead of relying on someone to keep it updated. That's the approach Deal to Delivery takes, and it's the difference between a list that looks good on the wall and one that actually moves cars to the front line faster.