2006 FORD FREESTAR SEL VIN 2FMZA52286BA22962

This Ford Freestar SEL is a 2006 model, finished in grey. Power reaches the wheels through an automatic gearbox. The fuel is petrol.

At the time of recording, the car had covered 90,551 miles. For a car of this age the mileage is low, which is exactly the kind of figure that deserves confirming from older entries. The number on the clock proves little by itself; earlier figures logged at services and inspections are what make it believable. A service book or a folder of workshop invoices is the simplest place to find past readings.

This Ford Freestar SEL is recorded with roof damage. Two cars with the same damage label can be very different: one needs a few new parts, the other major work. With roof damage on file, the inspection should start with the roof panel, the pillars and the windscreen frame.

The record notes that the car ran and drove. A key is on file for the car.

A clean title is on file for this car. A clean title is a good sign, though it says nothing about wear, maintenance or how the car was driven.

A car’s history answers three questions: who kept it, how it was looked after and what went wrong along the way. Pieces of a car’s history sit with registries, dealers, workshops and insurance companies, and none of them sees the whole picture. 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. A petrol engine in good order starts cleanly, idles evenly and pulls without hesitation. The automatic gearbox needs its fluid changed at the manufacturer’s intervals, and invoices should show that it was.

The tenth character of the VIN stands for the model year, and the eleventh for the plant that built the car. This car’s identification number is 2FMZA52286BA22962.

A VIN report gathers what different sources know about a car, such as the number of owners, mileage readings, damage and any branded title. No report is complete: a repair done privately and never claimed on insurance leaves nothing to find. A history report says nothing about the car’s present condition: the frame, corrosion, electrics and the quality of any repair are judged on a lift by a mechanic. Before any decision, check what is known about VIN 2FMZA52286BA22962.