Tracing history
▶ Last month, I promised to let you know how I got on with tracing a service history for the ex-government Citroën C5 estate that I’d just bought. And it’s gone rather well.
As with any kind of research project, the starting point is what you know already. In the C5s case that wasn’t a lot; the V5C listed two owners. The ‘current’ name at the top was the National Crime Agency at their published “Service Authority, PO Box 8000” address. However, one previous keeper was also listed at the bottom – from new in March 2013 until October 2013, the C5 was registered to “UKBA”, followed by a DVLA fleet number and then c/o Inchape Fleet Solutions in Portsmouth. Keying UKBA into Google identified them, and it was obvious once I knew – UKBA is the UK Border Agency. This also fitted with the change of keeper, because the UKBA ceased to exist as a separate organisation in October 2013, and many of its staff and functions transferred to the National Crime Agency (NCA).
Once I’d got the V5C, its reference number allowed me to access the full online MOT history including where tests were carried out. The first six tests up to 2019 were done by the Citroën main dealer in Fareham, Hampshire. The rest, from 2020 to 2023 were done by Rivus Fleet Solutions in Southampton. Until 2019, Rivus was the fleet maintenance side of British Telecom, after which it sought out other fleet contracts, including, presumably, the NCA’S. Late last year it also secured the Metropolitan Police’s vehicle maintenance contract, though ironically it also lost the BT one at about the same time.
Anyway, it was now a matter of contacting the Rivus and Yeomans Citroën, to see if they could or would provide information. If you do this, please keep in mind that you’re asking them to do you a favour; owning the car doesn’t give you an inalienable right to the information, and what, if anything, they choose to tell you is up to them. So be polite, and make clear that if there is a charge, you are willing to pay.
Anyway, I contacted Rivus first. They really couldn’t have been more helpful; the guy I spoke to confirmed that they had looked after my car since 2020 including servicing it four times. Then, before I’d even had chance to ask, he offered to email over a printout. Excellent.
Yeomans too, were very helpful. The service advisor said that she’d happily stamp up a service book, though I’d have to order it from their parts department and ask them to pass it over. She did, though, say that she wouldn’t be able to supply copies of invoices as I wasn’t the person who had paid for the work – all completely and totally understandable.
However, when I spoke to the parts department about a service book, I was informed that they “didn’t have one in stock, wouldn’t be able to obtain one and your best bet would be to buy one elsewhere.” So, I bought a genuine Citroën service book from a specialist supplier online, posted it down with an SAE and a polite letter explaining that I had tried to buy one from them but been unable to. Four days later the book came back nicely stamped for all six services.
So, there we are – a car sold with no history now has a complete one, and it cost less than a tenner and an hour’s time. The odd thing, though, about all this is that while the NCA themselves seem to have a strict policy of not supplying service histories (I know, I’ve asked…), I’ve yet to buy a single one with deleted sat-nav history. And looking through that can be very interesting indeed!