1995 TOYOTA CAMRY XLE VIN 4T1SK13E4SU642213

This Toyota Camry XLE was built in 1995. There is an automatic gearbox, with front-wheel drive. Power comes from a 2.2-litre petrol engine with four cylinders, rated at 125 hp. Details for this car come from a single data source and may differ from its documents.

The car was recorded with 87,210 miles on the clock. The instruments count in miles; the same distance in kilometres is about 1.6 times the figure. Low mileage for the car’s age is good news only if older readings confirm it. A later figure lower than an earlier one points to a replaced instrument cluster or an odometer that has been wound back. A service book or a folder of workshop invoices is the simplest place to find past readings.

The source data names no primary damage. That shows only that none was entered, so the body still deserves a close look. Signs of an old repair – uneven panel gaps, overspray, a slight mismatch in paint – can still turn up at an inspection.

A ‘runs and drives’ note means the car moved under its own power when it was checked. A key was noted with the car. A condition note describes the car at one moment; months of standing or later work on the car can change the picture in either direction.

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.

Registrations, changes of owner, inspection results and accident claims together make up what is called a car’s history. A car’s paperwork is scattered: the registry knows about owners, the workshop about repairs and the insurance company about claims. A clean, polished car can still hide a serious accident, a flood or years of hard use.

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, a rough idle, misfires or a warning light on the dashboard need looking into. Automatic transmissions, CVTs included, are expensive to repair, so the test drive should include pulling away from a standstill and a stretch at motorway speed.

The tenth character of the VIN stands for the model year, and the eleventh for the plant that built the car. This Toyota Camry XLE has the VIN 4T1SK13E4SU642213. A VIN that differs between the documents and the car, or shows signs of tampering, is reason enough to walk away.

What a history report can list depends on what has been documented about the car: registrations, mileage readings, damage, branded titles and theft reports. The absence of an entry is not proof that nothing happened; it may only mean that nobody wrote it down. 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. Before any decision, check what is known about VIN 4T1SK13E4SU642213.