2013 NISSAN SENTRA S VIN 3N1AB7AP0DL724754

This record covers a 2013 Nissan Sentra S. Power comes from a 1.8-litre petrol engine with four cylinders, rated at 130 hp. Power reaches the wheels through an automatic gearbox.

The record gives the mileage as 170,158 miles. The instruments count in miles; the same distance in kilometres is about 1.6 times the figure. Gaps of several years between logged figures deserve attention, as does any reading lower than the one before it. A service book or a folder of workshop invoices is the simplest place to find past readings.

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 there when the car was checked.

Title status in the record: clean. There is no salvage or similar mark, so the car was never recorded as a total loss.

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. 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.

Every modern car carries a 17-character VIN, and no two cars share one. This Nissan Sentra S has the VIN 3N1AB7AP0DL724754. The VIN usually appears at the base of the windscreen, on a door pillar and stamped into the body, and all of them should match the documents.

A VIN report shows what has been logged: earlier registrations, odometer figures, damage entries, branded titles and theft checks, wherever such data exists. However complete the paperwork, only an inspection shows the condition of the body, suspension, brakes and electrics today. A history check on VIN 3N1AB7AP0DL724754 is the place to start.