Free safety check
Looking at a car on a Japanese auction and want to know whether it carries an open safety recall before you bid? You can check it yourself in a few minutes, free of charge: a Japanese-market car keeps its recalls in the Japanese manufacturer's system, not in the European one. This page prepares your chassis number, sends you to the correct official form and translates the answer you get back.
We are not connected to the manufacturers and we do not run the check automatically. Every link here goes to an official Japanese source, and the chassis number you type stays inside your browser.
In plain words
A recall is the manufacturer admitting that a part or a production batch has a defect affecting safety or legal compliance, and undertaking to put it right at its own cost. It is announced for a range of chassis numbers, not for one particular car — so being inside the range does not mean this car has already failed.
Every manufacturer announces recalls, including the most reliable ones. A car with a closed recall has had a known weak point repaired at the maker's cost. A car with no recall history simply never had one announced for it.
A recall is the strictest category and concerns safety or legal compliance. An improvement measure covers a lighter defect. A service campaign is voluntary work the maker offers. All three show up in the same search, so read which one you got.
The notification letter went to a Japanese address, and the previous owner may never have brought the car in. An open campaign can therefore travel to Cyprus untouched, and nobody will tell you about it unless you check the number yourself.
Four steps
The whole process takes about five minutes. The only thing you need is the chassis number exactly as it is written in the vehicle documents.
01
It is on the Japanese export certificate or the registration document, and stamped on a plate in the engine bay or on the driver's door pillar. It looks like DJLFS-525565 or MXPL10-1234567.
02
Paste it into the field below. It is split into model code and serial, common typing mistakes are flagged, and each part gets a copy button.
03
Pick your brand in the table and open the manufacturer's own page. The pages are in Japanese; your browser's translate function is enough to find the fields.
04
Compare what you see with the result table below. If a recall is outstanding, note its number and contact an authorised dealer for that brand.
Step 2
Most failed searches are typing mistakes, not missing cars. Latin O instead of zero, a missing hyphen, a space or a full-width character is enough for the manufacturer's form to answer that nothing was found.
Enter it exactly as printed in the documents, with the hyphen. Half-width Latin letters and digits only.
This field works entirely in your browser. Nothing is sent to us, stored or logged.
Type the chassis number and the parts you need for the official form will appear here.
Step 3
These are the manufacturers' own Japanese-market pages — the only systems that recognise a Japanese chassis number. Links open in a new tab.
| Brand | What to enter | Official page |
|---|---|---|
| Toyota | Two fields, split at the hyphen: model code on the left, serial on the right. Half-width characters only. | Open |
| Lexus | Lexus publishes its recall notices and vehicle check here. If you cannot find a chassis field, use the government index below. | Open |
| Nissan | Two fields: model code on the left, the last 6 digits on the right. If nothing is found, try the last 7 digits. | Open |
| Honda | Passenger-car search. Enter the chassis number as printed on the registration document. | Open |
| Mazda | One search form. Enter the chassis number including the hyphen. | Open |
| Subaru | Chassis-number search. The service is down for maintenance every morning between 04:00 and 06:00 Japan time. | Open |
| Mitsubishi | Chassis-number search covering recalls, improvement measures and service campaigns. | Open |
| Suzuki | Chassis-number search covering recalls, improvement measures and service campaigns. | Open |
| Daihatsu | Chassis-number search for Daihatsu kei cars and passenger models. | Open |
European brands sold in Japan are checked by their own Japanese systems, and these work differently: they ask for the full 17-character VIN, not the Japanese chassis number, so the helper above does not apply to them. Each system covers only the cars that the brand's Japanese company imported itself.
Search by VIN. The form starts from the leading characters of the VIN (WDB, WDC, WDD, WDF and similar) and then asks for the rest.
Search by the full 17-character VIN from the registration document. Valid only for cars imported by BMW Group Japan.
Search by the full 17-character VIN. It lists outstanding measures only — and returns the same “nothing outstanding” message when the VIN is wrong.
Step 4
The wording differs slightly between manufacturers, but the answer is almost always one of these five.
| Typical wording on screen | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| 該当するリコール等はありません / 対象項目なし | No recall is recorded for this chassis number in that manufacturer's system. | Nothing to do. Remember this is not a technical inspection and not a history report. |
| リコール等の対象です / 未実施 | A recall applies to this vehicle and the work has not been carried out yet. | Note the recall number and contact an authorised dealer for the brand before you rely on the car. |
| 実施済み / 改修済み | The recall applied to this vehicle and the work has already been done, usually while the car was still in Japan. | Nothing to do. Save a screenshot — it is useful evidence when you sell the car. |
| 該当する車両が見つかりません / 車台番号をご確認ください | The number was not recognised. Most often a typing problem, sometimes a vehicle outside the searchable period. | Check O against 0 and I against 1, check the hyphen and half-width characters, then try again. |
| 詳しくは販売会社へお問い合わせください | The system cannot decide from the chassis number alone, for example when specifications differ inside one production range. | Contact a dealer for the brand, or send us the number and we will help you read it. |
Be honest with yourself
A recall check answers one narrow question: does the manufacturer have an open safety campaign for this chassis number. It is useful, free and worth doing — but it is not a condition report.
Your decision
An open recall is almost never a reason to write a car off. What matters is which part is being recalled, whether it is worth arranging the work before the car ships, and whether any of it should change your bid.
Airbags, brakes, steering and fuel system are worth understanding before you bid. A software update, a label replacement or a minor adjustment barely affects the buying decision. Send us the campaign number and we will tell you which kind it is.
The car is already listed for sale, so nobody carries out recall work at the auction by default. Having it done before shipping is possible for an extra fee and extra time. Ask us separately and we will say whether it is realistic for that particular campaign and what it would cost.
An open campaign is an argument about price and a reason to ask questions, not an automatic reason to drop a good car. Walking away makes sense when the recall comes together with other warning signs on the auction sheet.
FAQ
Yes. The manufacturers' search pages are open to everyone at no cost, so the check itself is free. Our assistant answers questions about the result on WhatsApp. Going through one specific car by hand is something we do for our customers and for people choosing a car with us. Anyone charging you for the lookup itself is selling you something you can do yourself.
On the Japanese export certificate or the registration document, and stamped on a plate in the engine bay or on the driver's door pillar. It is usually a model code, a hyphen and a serial, for example DJLFS-525565.
Cars built for the Japanese market carry a chassis number — a model code plus a serial — instead of the 17-character VIN used in Europe. Japanese recall systems work with the chassis number, so that is the one to use.
It means the manufacturer has no open safety campaign recorded for that chassis number. It says nothing about accident history, repairs, mileage or the current mechanical condition of the car.
The Korean recall systems work with vehicles registered in Korea, so they do not help for a car bought through the Japanese market. Send us the number and we will tell you what can realistically be checked.
No. The field on this page runs entirely inside your browser: nothing is sent to our server, stored or logged. If you want us to look at a car, you send us the number yourself on WhatsApp.
Need a hand?
Tell us what the Japanese page showed, or send the number and a photo of the screen — our assistant answers on WhatsApp and helps you make sense of it. Choosing a car with us, or already bought one? Then a manager goes through that specific car with you.