2016 NISSAN ROGUE S/SL/SV VIN 5N1AT2MV7GC797834

This Nissan Rogue is a 2016 model, finished in blue. The petrol engine has four cylinders. The drivetrain combines an automatic gearbox with four-wheel drive. The specification is taken from the source data and has not been checked against other documents.

The clock stood at 288,675 miles when the data was entered. Because the clock counts miles, any figure noted in kilometres has to be converted before the two can be compared. A car that has covered this much distance for its age has worked hard, and a mechanic should judge the wear accordingly. Services and inspections note the distance covered, so a car with an ordinary past builds up a trail of figures that climb year after year. A service book or a folder of workshop invoices is the simplest place to find past readings.

Primary damage in the record: rear end. A damage entry is a starting point for the inspection, telling the mechanic where to look first. Some damage shows its consequences only later: corroded connectors and electrical faults can surface months afterwards.

At the time of recording, the car ran and drove. A key was there when the car was checked.

Title status in the record: salvage. At some point in its life, the car was declared a total loss. A branded title follows the car through every change of owner, so it remains part of its history.

A car’s history answers three questions: who kept it, how it was looked after and what went wrong along the way. Much of a car’s past cannot be seen: a good body repair leaves no obvious mark, and neither do years of hard driving.

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. Many modern petrol engines are turbocharged and direct-injected; where they are, the turbocharger and injectors belong on a specialist’s checklist. The automatic gearbox needs its fluid changed at the manufacturer’s intervals, and invoices should show that it was. A car with four-wheel drive has extra differentials and often a transfer case, which an inspection should cover alongside the engine and gearbox.

Every modern car carries a 17-character VIN, and no two cars share one. This car’s identification number is 5N1AT2MV7GC797834. 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. 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. Look up the history of VIN 5N1AT2MV7GC797834 first, and let what it shows guide the inspection.