2010 TOYOTA RAV4 BASE VIN JTMBF4DV9AD022125

The Toyota RAV4 Base described here left the factory in 2010. Power reaches the wheels through an automatic gearbox. The fuel is petrol.

At the time of recording, the car had covered 215,484 miles. Miles and kilometres are easy to confuse, and a distance in miles looks lower than the same distance in kilometres. Gaps of several years between logged figures deserve attention, as does any reading lower than the one before it. Title paperwork often notes the mileage at each change of owner, which makes it a useful cross-check.

When the car was recorded, it showed mechanical damage. A damage entry is a starting point for the inspection, telling the mechanic where to look first. With mechanical damage on file, the inspection should start with the engine, the gearbox and the running gear.

A key is on file for the car. Months of standing can leave a car with seized brakes and perished tyres.

The record shows 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. Pieces of a car’s history sit with registries, dealers, workshops and insurance companies, and none of them sees the whole picture. 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, 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.

Stamped into the body and printed on a plate, the VIN is the one identifier that stays with a car through every owner, registration and repair. The VIN of this Toyota RAV4 Base is JTMBF4DV9AD022125. Scratches, fresh paint or a replaced plate around the VIN markings are warning signs in their own right.

What a history report can list depends on what has been documented about the car: registrations, mileage readings, damage, branded titles and theft reports. 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. For this 2010 Toyota RAV4 Base, the sensible next step is a history check on VIN JTMBF4DV9AD022125.