2018 INFINITI QX80 BASE VIN JN8AZ2NF8J9660761

This entry is for a 2018 Infiniti QX80 Base, finished in grey. The gearbox is automatic. The fuel is petrol. The specification is taken from the source data.

At the time of recording, the car had covered 105,552 miles. A clock converted from miles to kilometres should be documented, since the swap can hide the true mileage. Turning back an odometer takes little skill and leaves no visible trace, which is why earlier figures matter more than the display. Older figures usually turn up on service invoices, inspection reports and past title paperwork.

Primary damage in the record: side. 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. Given the kind of damage entered, a mechanic should look first at the door pillars, the sills and the side airbags.

The record notes that the car ran and drove. A key is on file for the car.

Title status in the record: salvage. At some point in its life, the car was declared a total loss. Once issued, a branded title stays with the VIN for good, and it affects registration and insurance for every later owner.

A car’s history is everything logged against it since it left the factory: registrations and owners, inspections, repairs and insurance claims. No single office holds the whole story of a car: registries, workshops, insurance companies and lenders each keep their own part. From the outside, a car with a repaired accident and a car without one can look identical.

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.

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. The VIN on file for this car is JN8AZ2NF8J9660761. 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.

Where entries exist, a VIN check can show changes of owner, past mileage readings, reported damage and whether the car is listed as stolen. Paperwork is only as complete as the people who kept it, so a report with few entries lowers the risk without removing it. A professional inspection makes sense whatever the paperwork shows, because no report measures corrosion, worn bushes or a poor repair. For this 2018 Infiniti QX80 Base, the sensible next step is a history check on VIN JN8AZ2NF8J9660761.