How to read a Japanese auction sheet

When you buy a kei vehicle from Japan, you’re almost always buying it before you’ve stood next to it. That sounds terrifying until you understand the one document that makes it safe: the auction sheet. It’s the inspector’s honest report card, and once you can read it, buying sight-unseen stops being a gamble and starts being a decision based on data.

Every vehicle that crosses a Japanese auction block is inspected by a neutral third party — not the seller — who assigns grades and marks every flaw on a standardized diagram. Japanese auctions live and die on the credibility of these sheets, so they’re remarkably honest. Here’s how to read one.

The overall grade

The big number in the corner is the overall grade, a single score for the whole vehicle. It runs roughly like this:

• 5 to 6 — Essentially new or exceptional. Rare and priced accordingly.
• 4.5 — Excellent. Very light wear, nothing of concern.
• 4 — Good, honest condition with only minor cosmetic wear. This is our floor.
• 3.5 — Average. Noticeable wear or a few blemishes; can still be a solid buy.
• 3 and below — Significant wear, damage, or age. We generally pass.
• R or RA — Repair history. The vehicle has been in an accident and repaired. An automatic walk-away for us.

We set a hard Grade 4 minimum. It isn’t the highest grade available, but it’s the sweet spot: an honest, sound vehicle that reconditioning can make genuinely great, at a price that still makes sense.

The interior and exterior letter grades

Alongside the number you’ll see two letters, usually written as something like B / B. The first is the exterior, the second the interior, each on an A-to-D scale:

• A — Excellent, near-flawless.
• B — Good, with minor wear appropriate to the age.
• C — Fair; visible wear or several blemishes.
• D — Poor; needs real work.

“B/B on a 25-year-old truck is exactly what you want: honest, average-to-good wear, and nothing hiding.”

So a Grade 4 with B/B — the spec we target — describes a mechanically sound vehicle with a couple of small dings and some light interior wear, and no bodywork. That’s a great starting point for a truck we’re going to fully service anyway.

The map: where the flaws live

The most information-dense part of the sheet is the diagram of the car — usually a top-down or unfolded view — covered in short codes. Each code marks a specific flaw at a specific spot. The common ones:

• A — Scratch (with a number 1–3 for severity).
• U — Dent (again numbered for size).
• W — Wave or ripple, often a sign of prior repair.
• S — Rust. C — Corrosion. Both matter more than cosmetic marks.
• X — Panel needs replacement. XX — Panel has been replaced.
• B — A dent accompanied by a scratch.

Read together, the map tells a story. A scattering of A1 and small U marks on a Grade 4 truck is completely normal — that’s just an honest quarter-century of use. What you’re hunting for is the stuff that doesn’t belong.

The red flags we walk away from

Grades and maps only help if you’re willing to act on them. Here’s what ends our interest in a vehicle, regardless of price:

• Any repair or accident history (R / RA). Reconditioning fixes wear, not a compromised chassis.
• Rust and corrosion codes (S, C) beyond the most superficial surface spots.
• Replaced structural panels (XX) that hint at a bigger past incident.
• A grade below 4, or interior/exterior letters below C. A clean C/C in good shape is fine — it’s grime and honest wear, not damage.
• Inconsistencies — a high grade that doesn’t match a messy map, or notes that don’t add up.

This discipline is why we sometimes lose auctions. We’d rather miss a car than start with a bad one, because everything we do afterward depends on the bones being right.

How we use the sheet for you

When we’re sourcing your custom order, you never have to decode any of this alone. We pull the sheet, translate every code and note into plain English, and give you our honest read: what the marks mean, what they don’t, and whether the vehicle clears our standard. You approve candidates with the same information we’re using.

The auction sheet is the reason a good importer can promise honesty about condition. It’s not marketing — it’s a neutral inspection, and reading it well is most of the job.