Read beyond the headline grade.

What the sheet is

Before a sale, an inspector employed by the auction house looks over each car and records what they find on a one-page sheet. It is a visual inspection at the auction yard, written in Japanese and in the house’s own shorthand, and it is the main piece of condition information a buyer has before the hammer falls. Treat it as a well-informed description, not a guarantee.

The key vehicle details

The top of the sheet identifies the car. These fields matter as much as the grade, because they decide what the car is and whether it suits your destination.

• Auction house and lot number. Which sale, which day and which lot. Conventions differ between houses, so we always note where a sheet comes from.
• Model, chassis code and trim. The exact variant. This drives specification, value and, for some destinations, eligibility.
• First registration and model year. Japanese sheets usually show the first registration date in Japan, often in the Japanese calendar. Your country’s age-based rules are applied to this date, so it is worth checking carefully.
• Mileage and mileage marks. The odometer reading at inspection, with a mark where the house believes the reading has been replaced, altered or cannot be verified. The mark is as important as the number.
• Colour, engine size, transmission and drive. Usually abbreviated. Colour codes and a note of any respray may appear here or in the comments.
• Equipment. Air conditioning, navigation, sunroof, leather, alloy wheels and other options as abbreviations or ticked boxes.
• Shaken. Whether Japan’s roadworthiness certificate is current and until when. Relevant to the car’s life in Japan, not to registration in your country.
• Grades. An overall grade and separate interior and exterior grades. The grades guide explains the scales and why they vary.

The inspector’s comments

The free-text comments are the most valuable part of the sheet and the part most often skipped. Here the inspector records what the diagram cannot show: noises, warning lights, smoke, oil leaks, a rough idle, non-original parts, aftermarket wheels or suspension, a replaced engine or transmission, a service book, the number of keys, smoking odours, and repairs or resprays noticed on the day. Two cars with the same grade can read very differently once the comments are translated.

Comments are brief and use the house’s own abbreviations. We translate them in full rather than summarising, keep the inspector’s wording where it carries nuance, and add our own view separately so you can see what the house said and what we think.

The condition notes and the diagram

An outline of the car carries letter codes placed where the inspector found scratches, dents, repaired or repainted panels, rust or corrosion, usually with a number for size. The codes are explained in Auction Grades & Damage Markings. Read the diagram with the comments: a repaired panel marked on the diagram is often explained in the text, and the text sometimes records work that the diagram cannot place.

Limits of the sheet

• One inspection, one day. It records what one inspector saw in the time available at the yard. It is not a road test, a lift inspection or a diagnostic scan.
• Houses differ. Each auction house has its own sheet layout, grade scale and conventions. The same grade at two houses can describe noticeably different cars.
• Inspectors differ. Even within one house, judgement varies. A borderline car can be graded either way.
• Brevity. Comments are short. Something not mentioned is not necessarily absent.
• Age. On older and modified cars the sheet often leaves more unsaid, which is exactly where a further check earns its cost.

How Rindo helps

When you shortlist a lot, we go through the sheet and the photographs with you: we translate the comments in full, explain the grades and the markings for that house, point out what the sheet leaves open, and pursue further checks or an inspection where one is available for that car. You get our findings in plain English before you set a maximum bid, and the decision stays yours. See Our Checks & Inspections for what we can look at beyond the sheet.