Here's what your full Carlytics report looks like

The specification, recall and known-issues sections behave the same way for any car that carries a manufacturer-issued VIN, wherever it is being sold. A Japanese-built Toyota or Subaru with its original seventeen characters intact will decode to a full factory build, and its recall campaigns do not stop applying because the car was shipped to Napier. Those parts of the sample are a fair preview.

The mileage section is where a New Zealand report differs most. The sample shows a dated series of readings because the car spent its life in a market that records them at every periodic inspection. We hold no per-car odometer record for New Zealand, so for a locally-sold car that section will show what was actually found rather than a modelled trend line — and where nothing was found, it will say so. We would rather print an empty row than a number we invented, which is the same rule we apply to every field in the report.

The build-specification section behaves differently again if the car carries a New Zealand-assigned VIN — one beginning with 7A, which a large share of used Japanese imports here are given on entry. Those seventeen characters were issued in New Zealand, so there is no factory descriptor inside them; the report will show what it can establish and leave the rest blank rather than guess a grade. If that is your car, the original chassis plate in the engine bay is the identifier that matters, and finding it costs nothing.

Market value is drawn from advertised stock, which is thinner for nameplates that were only ever sold in Japan and never listed widely elsewhere. Expect a wider range, or no estimate, on a grey-import grade that has no European or British equivalent — and treat a wide range as the honest answer rather than as a failure.

The recall section is worth reading with the car's origin in mind. A campaign is issued against a build in the market that build was sold into, and it stays open against that build until the work is carried out on the individual car. A used import can therefore show an open campaign that was in fact completed in Japan or the United Kingdom before export, because a repair done abroad does not necessarily appear in anything you or we can see afterwards. Treat an open campaign as a question for an authorised workshop and that specific car rather than as a settled fact.

Two sections will read thinner on a New Zealand car than they do on the European sample. Import and registration records are one: we hold no per-car New Zealand registration file, so that entry reflects what the VIN and its public trail establish rather than a local record. Accident and damage records are the other: a collision repaired in Japan before export, or repaired here without an insurance claim, is recorded in no database anyone can query. That is what the auction sheet and a physical inspection are for, and between them they will tell you more about condition than any report can.

Everything in the sample is unlocked, so you can judge the depth for yourself before spending NZ$15.90. Run the free decode on the actual VIN you are considering first: it will tell you within seconds whether that particular car is one the report can say a lot about, or one where the paperwork in the seller's folder matters more than anything we hold.