2012 MAZDA CX-9 VIN JM3TB3DV1C0351008

The Mazda CX-9 described here left the factory in 2012. Under the bonnet is a 3.7-litre petrol engine. There is an automatic gearbox, with four-wheel drive.

The recorded mileage is 116,714 miles. Because the clock counts miles, any figure noted in kilometres has to be converted before the two can be compared. Gaps of several years between logged figures deserve attention, as does any reading lower than the one before it. Older figures usually turn up on service invoices, inspection reports and past title paperwork.

When the car was recorded, it showed front-end damage. A damage type says what kind of damage the car had, not how serious it was or whether it has been repaired since. Damage rarely stays where it is first seen: an impact can reach the mountings and airbags behind a panel, and water or fire the wiring and electronics.

The record notes that the car ran and drove. A key is on file for the car. Months of standing can leave a car with seized brakes and perished tyres.

A transfer document in place of a title is on file for this car. Without a title certificate, registering the car can take extra paperwork and checks.

Registrations, changes of owner, inspection results and accident claims together make up what is called a car’s history. From the outside, a car with a repaired accident and a car without one can look identical.

Many modern petrol engines are turbocharged and direct-injected; where they are, the turbocharger and injectors belong on a specialist’s checklist. 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. With four-wheel drive, mismatched tyres can strain the centre differential or coupling, so all four should be the same make and similarly worn.

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. This car’s identification number is JM3TB3DV1C0351008. The number in the car’s documents should match the one stamped into the body and the one on the plate at the base of the windscreen.

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. Look up the history of VIN JM3TB3DV1C0351008 first, and let what it shows guide the inspection.