Vehicle lookup & battery compatibility
How a customer's car is matched to the batteries that fit it.
Vehicle lookup & battery compatibility
👤 Ops · 🛠 Dev
This is the feature that lets a customer enter their number plate and instantly see the right batteries. Understanding it explains one of the most important operational rules on the store (the SKU link, below).
How it works, conceptually
- The customer enters their rego + state (e.g.
ABC123, NSW). - The CBP API looks the plate up and returns the matching vehicle(s) — make, model, year.
- The customer confirms which vehicle is theirs.
- The API returns the list of batteries that fit that vehicle (the "fitment" or "compatible parts" list).
- The site filters that list down to batteries that exist as products in this Shopify store, and shows them.
The selected vehicle is remembered for the rest of the visit, so product and collection pages can show "fits / doesn't fit" badges.
The SKU link (critical)
The API knows batteries by their SKU. Shopify knows them as products. The two are joined by matching SKUs.
If a battery's SKU in Shopify does not match the SKU in the fitment data, that battery will not appear as compatible — even if it physically fits the car. This is the single most common cause of "a battery is missing from the results." See Managing battery products.
What the customer sees
- On collection pages: a callout showing their selected vehicle, and compatibility cues on products.
- On product pages: whether this specific battery fits their vehicle.
- If the lookup finds no vehicle, the customer is asked to check the rego/state or browse manually.
For developers
The lookup, vehicle state, and compatibility UI are implemented across a few modules — see
Custom JavaScript modules and The backend API
for the endpoints (/v1/vehicle/...) and the code that calls them.