What is a RAG report: a vehicle health check report that grades every inspected item red, amber or green, so the customer can see at a glance what needs doing now, what will need doing soon and what is fine.
A RAG report is the customer-facing output of a vehicle health check in which each inspected item carries one of three grades: red for work needed now, amber for work needed soon, green for checked and in order. The abbreviation stands for red, amber, green, and the same traffic-light convention is used in project management and fleet compliance.
It matters because the grade is the decision the customer is being asked to make, compressed into a colour. A report where red and amber are applied consistently and backed by measurements gets approved; one where the grades drift becomes wallpaper. In the UK and Ireland it is a RAG report or traffic light report; in North America the same idea appears on a multi-point inspection as red, yellow, green, and the report is more often called a DVI summary or MPI sheet.
What the three grades mean on a vehicle
- Red: attention required now. Items at or beyond a safety or legal limit. Tyre tread at or under 1.6 mm across the central three quarters, brake pads at the manufacturer's minimum, a bulb out, a leaking brake pipe, a worn track rod end.
- Amber: attention required soon. Items inside the limit but wearing towards it. Tread at 2 to 3 mm, pads at 3 to 4 mm, discs lipped but within thickness, a wiper blade that smears, coolant slightly low, a battery that tests weak.
- Green: checked and satisfactory. The item was looked at and needs nothing. A green with no measurement is fine for a bulb; a green on tyres without a depth reading is a missed opportunity, because it is the reading that makes the next visit's amber credible.
Most dealer groups publish their own thresholds so that two technicians grade the same tyre the same way. Where there is no house standard, the technician's judgement fills the gap and the grades wander.
How a RAG report is built and sent
On a paper VHC the technician ticks boxes and the advisor transcribes. On an electronic vehicle health check the grades are entered on a tablet during the inspection, each amber and red item gets a photo or a short video, prices are added from the parts and labour system, and the report goes to the customer as a link by SMS, email or WhatsApp. The customer approves, defers or declines line by line and the answer lands back on the repair order.
The order of items on the report is worth thinking about. Reds first, then ambers, then greens, with the measurement and the media beside each grade. A report that opens with a list of thirty greens buries the two lines that matter.
RAG report example: a fleet van at 60,000 miles
A panel van comes in for an interim service. The technician records: nearside front tyre 1.8 mm (amber, close to red), offside front 4 mm (green with a note), rear pads 2.5 mm (red, below the 3 mm house minimum), a split CV boot (red), a chip in the windscreen outside the driver's line of sight (amber), everything else green.
The report goes to the fleet manager, not the driver, with a video of the CV boot and a photo of the depth gauge in the front tyre. The fleet manager approves the pads and the CV boot, defers the tyre to a fitting at the driver's depot next week, and declines the windscreen chip because the fleet's glass supplier handles it. Three decisions, three different outcomes, all recorded against the RO. The van goes back on the road the same afternoon and the deferred tyre carries a follow-up date.
What a RAG report does not do
- It is not an MOT result. A red on a RAG report is the workshop's advice. Only the MOT tester's record says pass, fail or advisory in the legal sense.
- It does not explain. A colour tells the customer what, not why. The explanation is the advisor's job, or the technician's on video.
- It does not price itself. Grades without prices produce a second phone call; prices without grades produce a shopping list.
The mistakes are predictable. Amber inflation, where everything borderline is marked amber to avoid a hard conversation, so that ambers stop meaning anything. Red deflation, where a red is softened to amber so the customer does not feel cornered. Reports sent only when there is something to sell, which teaches customers that a message from the workshop means a bill. And no follow-up on deferred ambers, so the item is rediscovered from scratch at the next visit and lands in declined work twice.
Where the RAG report goes and who owns it
The report belongs to the repair order and is stored in the eVHC platform or the DMS. The service manager reads the aggregate: how many reds and ambers were identified per hundred vehicles, what share of each was sold, and what was deferred. The advisor owns the conversion on each report. The technician owns the accuracy of the grades, and a monthly sample of ten reports read cold by the manager is the cheapest quality check there is.
Video is part of this practice because a red grade on a part the customer cannot see is an assertion, and a twenty-second clip of the worn pad turns it into something they can judge. With Venta Video the technician records that clip on a phone during the check, and the customer receives it as a branded page over SMS, WhatsApp or email with approve, book or pay buttons beside the grade. More on how service teams run it on the automotive aftersales page.
