2023 FORD ESCAPE ACTIVE VIN 1FMCU9GN9PUA11617

The Ford Escape Active described here left the factory in 2023. The drivetrain combines an automatic gearbox with four-wheel drive. The petrol engine has three cylinders. Details for this car come from a single data source and may differ from its documents.

At the time of recording, the car had covered 98,609 miles. Because the clock counts miles, any figure noted in kilometres has to be converted before the two can be compared. Averaged over the car’s age, the mileage works out well above the usual annual distance, and wear on the suspension, brakes and interior should be judged with that in mind. A later figure lower than an earlier one points to a replaced instrument cluster or an odometer that has been wound back. Title paperwork often notes the mileage at each change of owner, which makes it a useful cross-check.

The main issue noted for this car is gearbox damage. Two cars with the same damage label can be very different: one needs a few new parts, the other major work. With gearbox damage on file, the inspection should start with the gearbox, its mountings and the driveshafts.

A key is on file for the car.

The car carries a clean title. A clean title is a good sign, though it says nothing about wear, maintenance or how the car was driven.

A car’s history is everything logged against it since it left the factory: registrations and owners, inspections, repairs and insurance claims. What a car has been through is seldom visible at first glance, and a respray can make even a badly damaged car look sound.

For the engine, the service history matters most: oil changes, filters and the timing belt or chain are the entries to look for. 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. Drive to all four wheels means more to maintain: differentials and couplings have oil of their own, which some manufacturers want changed at set intervals.

The ninth character of the VIN is a check digit calculated from the other sixteen, so a mistyped or invented number does not add up. This car’s identification number is 1FMCU9GN9PUA11617. 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.

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. The past is on file; the car’s condition today is a job for a mechanic, who can check the structure, underbody, electrics and any repairs on a lift. Before going any further with this Ford Escape Active, it makes sense to look up VIN 1FMCU9GN9PUA11617.