A used Peugeot may be a good purchase... but only when you choose wisely. The cars that have been damaged by flood, fire, or accidents or stolen vehicles are not good companions on the road. There are other tricky ways in which dealers sell their customers "problem cars". Luckily, the drivers now have a very reliable truth detector.
It is called a VIN, that is, vehicle identification number. This is the code of 17 characters. You can find it in several places of almost every car. The most typical spots to look for the VIN are the lower part of the windshield and a door jamb sticker, both located at the driver's side. If you are in doubt, just try to find your VIN by the license plate number.
This string of numbers is used to encode the manufacturer of a car, the place where the item was made, its age, engine specs, and some other details. However, the most interesting thing is not decoding. The VIN number is associated with the car title, that is, you can re-construct all the history of any car by looking the number up in a reliable database. Peugeot VIN check is just the way to discover all those crucial episodes of the history of a chosen car: the record of accidents, mileage, theft reports, and other important evidence.
Let's see what this checking tool can do for drivers.
Peugeot VIN Number
When you enter the VIN number in the blank field and press "Check", the system returns a checklist of the characteristics of a car. The "problem" ones are marked red. The search should not take more than a few minutes. Here is the list of records that you get:
- The model of your car, year and country of manufacture, the car's color and type. Don't skip this part: if the record doesn't look like the real car in front of you, there is a problem.
- Recalls by the manufacturer. Even the best car models can have defects that are only visible after the release. When people report those defects, the manufacturer recalls the model to replace some details or fix the issues in any other ways. Such incidents will be on the list after your VIN check. Peugeot cares for the customers; car dealers often don't. They may skip the repair that should follow the recall. If you see anything like this, don't buy a recalled car, because it may turn out to be really dangerous on the road.
- History of accidents and damage by fire/hail/flood. A crashed car may be rebuilt or it may be just bought after salvage, painted, tuned here and there, but... not repaired. Avoid buying salvaged cars.
- Theft records. No comment here.
- Records about liens, export, or repossession. You will be notified if those deals have not been closed.
- Real mileage against the reported one. It's nice to get a warning about odometer tampering before you decide to purchase a car.
- Records of personal, police, military, or taxi use.
Data sources
The mechanism behind this checking system is simple. A car may change its owners, but it usually doesn't change its VIN (except for the VIN fraud). With its VIN, it passes hundreds of institutions: car dealers, state authorities of the US, Canada, and other countries, local mechanics and inspectors, insurance companies, salvage auctions and so on. When anything happens to the car, it gets recorded. We collect those records that are publicly available and bring them to the consumers. You deserve to know the history of your car. Check it now and keep yourself safe on the roads!
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