2012 SUBARU IMPREZA PREMIUM VIN JF1GJAD69CH020811

This entry is for a 2012 Subaru Impreza Premium. Power reaches the wheels through a CVT gearbox. The petrol engine has four cylinders. Details for this car come from a single data source and may differ from its documents.

The record gives the mileage as 98,536 miles. The instruments count in miles; the same distance in kilometres is about 1.6 times the figure. The number on the clock proves little by itself; earlier figures logged at services and inspections are what make it believable. Figures carry most weight when they come from independent sources: workshops, inspection stations and past title paperwork.

In the source data, the main issue is front-end damage. The damage type is a short label: the extent of the damage and the quality of any repair still have to be judged on the car. Some damage shows its consequences only later: corroded connectors and electrical faults can surface months afterwards.

The record notes that the car ran and drove. A key was noted with the car. A condition note describes the car at one moment; months of standing or later work on the car can change the picture in either direction.

A car’s history answers three questions: who kept it, how it was looked after and what went wrong along the way. From the outside, a car with a repaired accident and a car without one can look identical.

Regular oil changes and timely work on the timing belt or chain decide how well an engine copes with age. On a petrol engine, spark plugs, ignition coils and the cooling system are the routine items a service history should cover. 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 all-wheel drive, mismatched tyres can strain the centre differential or coupling, so all four should be the same make and similarly worn.

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. The record gives the VIN as JF1GJAD69CH020811.

A VIN report gathers what different sources know about a car, such as the number of owners, mileage readings, damage and any branded title. No report is complete: a repair done privately and never claimed on insurance leaves nothing to find. However complete the paperwork, only an inspection shows the condition of the body, suspension, brakes and electrics today. The next step is to look up the history behind VIN JF1GJAD69CH020811.