Reading a service history, and what its absence means

"Full service history" is the phrase that does the most work in a used car advertisement and the least when you examine it.

What a good history shows

• Regular intervals, not just many entries. Four services in one year and none in the next three is worse than one a year for four years.
• Kilometres that climb. Each entry records the odometer. Read them in order. A reading that goes down, or barely moves for two years and then jumps, is the single clearest sign of a wound-back meter.
• The expensive items, done. Timing belt, clutch, suspension, battery. A car with these recently done is worth more than one that is about to need them, and the book is where you find out which you are buying.

What it does not prove

Stamps can be added. Bills are better than stamps because they list what was actually replaced; a stamp says only that somebody had a stamp.

No history at all

Ordinary on an older car here, especially a two-wheeler, and not automatically a reason to walk. It is a reason to look harder at the car itself and to pay less: you are buying an unknown, and unknowns are cheaper.

Ask the seller instead. Somebody who has genuinely looked after a car can tell you where it was serviced, roughly when, and what has been replaced, without a book in front of them. Somebody who cannot remember anything about four years of ownership is worth being careful with.

The one cross-check

Compare the newest service reading against the odometer today. If the car has done 800 kilometres in two years according to that sum, and the seller says they drive to work in it daily, something does not fit.