Japan Vehicle Data
Japanese-language primary sources, aggregated for buyers outside Japan

Grade R vs RA on Japanese Auction Sheets — What the Standard Actually Says

Published 2026-07-31

Search this question in English and you get three mutually exclusive answers:

  1. RA is lighter than R — minor repair, otherwise a good car
  2. RA means the airbags deployed — the “A” stands for airbag, making RA worse than R
  3. R means repaired in Japan, RA means repaired overseas and re-imported

These cannot all be true. They are presented with equal confidence across importer sites, and a buyer trying to price a car has no way to choose between them.

The answer is (1). Japanese trade sources are consistent: R = 修復歴あり (structural repair history). RA = 修復歴あり, minor. We found no Japanese source supporting the airbag reading or the re-import reading.

But the verdict is the least useful thing in this article. The reason English coverage is confused is that it is arguing about a letter instead of reading the standard behind it — and that standard is public, dated, industry-wide, and contains a rule that changes how you read every auction sheet you will ever see.

1. 修復歴 is a defined term, not a description

R is not an inspector’s impression. It is a determination against a written industry standard.

The definition (日本オートオークション協議会 / NAK, repair-history determination manual):

A vehicle which, as a result of a traffic accident or other incident, sustained damage to a skeleton part (骨格部位) of the body, and was repaired by correction (修正) or part replacement (交換).

Who set it: established in 1997 jointly by the Automobile Fair Trade Council (自動車公正取引協議会), the Japan Automobile Appraisal Association (日本自動車査定協会), the Japan Used Car Dealers Association (日本中古自動車販売協会連合会), and the Japan Automobile Dealers Association.

Last revised: April 2019. The criteria are harmonised across the fair-trade council, the appraisal association, and the auction council — so the venues are not each inventing their own definition of what counts.

It is also a mandatory disclosure. Under the automotive fair competition code, dealers must state 修復歴あり or 修復歴なし on the price board and vehicle condition statement. This is a regulated declaration, not marketing language.

2. The skeleton parts

修復歴 applies only to damage on these. Everything else is outside the definition.

#JapaneseEnglish
1フレーム(サイドメンバー)Frame / side member
2クロスメンバーCross member
3インサイドパネルInside panel
4ピラーPillar
5ダッシュパネルDash panel / firewall
6ルーフパネルRoof panel
7ルームフロアパネルFloor panel
8トランクフロアパネルTrunk floor panel
(9)ラジエータコアサポートRadiator core support — contested, see §5

Counts of “8” and “9” both circulate because some sources merge front and rear cross members into one part and some treat the core support as separate. The list is the same; the numbering isn’t.

3. The rule that changes how you read every sheet

Here is the sentence that English-language coverage almost never carries:

骨格は溶接接合されている部位のみとし、ネジ止め部位は骨格としない。 Skeleton parts are welded members only. Bolted-on parts are not skeleton parts.

Bonnets, doors, fenders, bumpers — anything you can unbolt — are excluded by definition. Repairing them, replacing them, or repainting them does not create 修復歴 and does not produce an R grade.

The consequence, stated plainly:

A car can have had its bonnet replaced, both front fenders replaced, both doors replaced, and half the body resprayed — and still be legitimately 修復歴なし, with no R on the sheet.

Nobody is lying to you when that happens. The sheet is answering a narrower question than the one you are asking.

“No R” does not mean “never crashed.” It means “no welded structural member was corrected or replaced.”

This is where the real money is lost — not in choosing wrongly between R and RA, but in reading “no R” as “no accident” and skipping the damage map. The damage map is where bolt-on repair shows up: W (repair marks), X (needs replacing), XX (already replaced), P (needs paint). A no-R car carrying several XX marks on bolt-on panels has a history. The grade won’t tell you; the map will.

4. The 2019 threshold — how much damage counts

The April 2019 revision set an explicit size test:

Threshold
Before 2019Damage roughly the size of a 500-yen coin or smaller was exempt
From April 2019Damage smaller than a credit card is exempt; larger than card size on any skeleton part = 修復歴

For cross members, the determination examples are concrete: replaced, bent or dented (or showing repair marks) beyond the threshold, or cracked — any of these is 修復歴.

Two practical consequences:

5. RA, and the radiator core support

RA

RA = 修復歴あり, minor extent. Some venues use it; the framework is the same as R.

The critical point buyers miss: RA is still a repair-history car. “Minor” describes how much structural work was done, not whether it was structural. An RA car has had a welded skeleton member corrected or replaced.

There is no Japanese support for “A = airbag.” Nor for the re-import reading.

The core support

This is the genuine grey area, and it’s worth understanding because it’s the most common way a front-impact car ends up without an R.

But — and this is the part that matters when bidding: the core support is welded to skeleton members, and an impact hard enough to damage it frequently damages the cross member and side member behind it. Removing it can also damage what it’s attached to.

So a car graded 3.5 for core support work has had a front impact. Whether the structure behind it was also affected is exactly the question the grade doesn’t settle. On such a car, look at the damage map around the front cross member and side members, and read the inspector’s remarks.

6. 事故車 and 修復歴 are not the same word

English importers translate both as “accident car,” which destroys a distinction Japanese buyers rely on.

TermStatus
修復歴Defined by industry standard. Mandatory disclosure. Determinable, auditable
事故車No legal definition, no disclosure requirement. Colloquial

Which means this sentence is entirely coherent in Japanese, and not evasive:

「事故車ですが、修復歴はありません」 “It was in an accident, but it has no repair history.”

A car can be rear-ended, have its bumper and boot lid replaced, and be truthfully declared 修復歴なし. Conversely a car with no dramatic accident story can be R if a structural member was corrected.

When you ask an exporter “has this car been in an accident?”, you are asking a question the paperwork does not answer. Ask instead: what is the repair-history determination, and what does the damage map show?

7. What to do when bidding

Read in this order

  1. Repair history field — R / RA / present / absent. This is a separate axis from the numeric grade
  2. Damage map — W, X, XX, P for bolt-on repair the grade excludes; S and C for rust and corrosion
  3. Inspector’s remarks (特記事項) — where structural notes and anything unusual land
  4. Numeric grade — last. It is a condition score, not a history record

Specific asks for your agent

On pricing. R-grade cars trade materially below equivalent clean-grade cars — English trade estimates put the discount around 25–40%, and Japanese venue data shows the same direction. That discount is not automatically a bad deal. A well-repaired R car at a correct price can be a sound buy; the failure mode is paying clean-grade money for R-grade structure, or assuming “no R” bought you an untouched car.

Method and limits

Sources. Japanese-language trade and industry material: the NAK repair-history determination framework, the Automobile Fair Trade Council’s published criteria, Japanese auction agency and dealer guidance on grading, and Japanese explanations of the core support edge case. Collected 2026-07-31. Compared against the English-language claims described at the top.

Limits:

Sources