2017 FORD ESCAPE TITANIUM VIN 1FMCU9JDXHUD72517

This Ford Escape Titanium is a 2017 model, finished in black. There is an automatic gearbox, with four-wheel drive. The fuel is petrol. Details for this car come from a single data source and may differ from its documents.

The source data puts the mileage at 72,223 miles. The instruments count in miles; the same distance in kilometres is about 1.6 times the figure. A later figure lower than an earlier one points to a replaced instrument cluster or an odometer that has been wound back.

No damage type appears in the source data; that shows what was entered, not what the car has been through. Paint depth, panel gaps and the underbody show whether the body has been repaired.

A key was noted with the car. Condition notes are a snapshot: the car may have been worked on, stripped of parts or left standing since.

According to the source data, the car has a clean title. Nothing on the title points to a total loss or a flood.

A car’s history answers three questions: who kept it, how it was looked after and what went wrong along the way. No single office holds the whole story of a car: registries, workshops, insurance companies and lenders each keep their own part. What a car has been through is seldom visible at first glance, and a respray can make even a badly damaged car look sound.

A cold start, the colour of the exhaust smoke and any oil leaks tell a mechanic a good deal about how an engine has been treated. On a petrol engine, spark plugs, ignition coils and the cooling system are the routine items a service history should cover. The automatic gearbox needs its fluid changed at the manufacturer’s intervals, and invoices should show that it was.

A history check works by VIN because the number never changes, unlike registration plates and owners. The record gives the VIN as 1FMCU9JDXHUD72517. A VIN that differs between the documents and the car, or shows signs of tampering, is reason enough to walk away.

Where entries exist, a VIN check can show changes of owner, past mileage readings, reported damage and whether the car is listed as stolen. A VIN check and a physical inspection answer different questions: the first says what happened to the car, the second what condition it is in now. Look up the history of VIN 1FMCU9JDXHUD72517 first, and let what it shows guide the inspection.