Vin Lookup For Older Vehicles – If you’ve bought a car before, you’ll be familiar with what VIN is and why it’s so important. If you are very new to the car buying process, you may have come across the term before and now you are here to find out what it is all about.
In short, all vehicles sold in the United States must carry a unique identification code known as VIN. VIN stands for “Vehicle Identification Number”, which consists of a 17-character code that can be a mixture of numbers and letters. VIN is assigned to each vehicle produced by any automaker using a standard classification system. You can think of the VIN as the vehicle identification number.
Vin Lookup For Older Vehicles
Here’s a fun little fact: VIN has been around since 1954, although at the time no one had even thought of adopting a standard format, so manufacturers used a wide variety of formats. This changed in 1981 when the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) mandated the standard 17-character VIN sequence used today.
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If you come across any mention of a VIN squish, it’s basically a shortened version of the VIN consisting of the first 11 characters of the VIN sequence. You will learn more about the VIN structure in the next section of this article.
VINs are also found on legal documents such as insurance cards or policies, owner’s manuals, vehicle ownership and registration cards/certificates, and repair shop records, just to name a few. You can find a detailed guide to finding the VIN based on your vehicle type here.
Having a VIN in hand is one thing, but knowing what the VIN represents is another. After all, the 17 characters in the VIN aren’t just made up of a random selection of numbers and letters. You need to use VIN decoder to understand VIN.
VIN decoding is relatively simple. The standard VIN format that it adheres to includes various information that can identify the various characteristics of the car in question. This includes the car manufacturer, year it was made, model and more. In addition, all data stored in the VIN is constantly updated throughout the life of the car. Keep service logs, mileage readings and other valuable data.
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Note that the VIN does not contain the letters O, I, and Q; this is to avoid confusion with the numbers 0, 1 and 9 respectively.
Also, if you find an 11 character VIN, it’s known as a squish VIN. It’s basically a shortened version of the VIN that omits the check digits and serial number of the car (from the twelfth to the seventeenth digit).
The first three characters in WMI identify the vehicle manufacturer in question. Specifically, the first character represents the vehicle’s country of origin. The first character represents the country of origin; for example, J represents Japan. However, in some cases, the first and second character combination will represent the country of origin; for example, KL represents South Korea.
If the second character is not used as part of the country identifier, it represents the car manufacturer. The third character represents the vehicle category, whether it is a passenger vehicle or another vehicle. Alternatively, it can be used as a departmental identifier within an automaker.
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For example, take the following WMI: 1G1. The first “1” represents the United States of America. The second character, G, represents the car manufacturer Chevrolet. Finally, the third class presents passenger cars from Chevrolet.
This section uniquely identifies the vehicle’s attributes. Some of the information you will find includes (but is not limited to):
Check digits are also placed in this section. As mentioned, check digits are used to check invalid VIN codes. Characters used for check digits are not actually resolved; is based on a complex mathematical formula developed by the US Department of Transportation. Depending on that calculation, you will be able to tell if the VIN is valid or not.
The last part consists of the tenth to the seventeenth character. The tenth character is the model year of the car. Apart from omitting the letters O, I and Q, the letters U and Z and the number 0 are not used to represent the model year.
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The eleventh character represents the manufacturing plant where the car was made. Each car manufacturer will have their own specific factory code. Finally, the last set of characters (positions twelve through seventeen) represents the car’s serial number.
With all that in mind, if you run the following VIN, 5J8TC2H67KL005210, through our VIN decoder, some of the information you will get includes:
In simple terms, VIN works in the same way as your social security number which represents a unique set of characters that identify a particular vehicle, including all performance attributes and usage history. Thus, no two VIN numbers are the same.
The main benefits of knowing the VIN and verifying or decoding it relate primarily to protection against possible fraud. First, you can use the VIN to check the vehicle history report before you buy it. This way, you’ll be able to get valuable information about the car you’re looking at, as well as find out if there might be something wrong with the car that the dealer didn’t disclose to you.
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Running a VIN check ensures that you are well protected against possible fraudulent attempts to sell you a lemon (essentially a car with multiple production issues), a stolen vehicle, or a salvage car, among others.
Identifying a stolen car is one thing, but what if the VIN is stolen? You may think it’s impossible, but it’s actually easy. Fraudsters will double the VIN of a used (or new) car in excellent condition, then use that VIN and “register” it to another car, which can be a lemon, a salvage car, or even no car at all. VIN theft generally involves a lot more paperwork than an actual physical car.
The danger here is that a person with a vehicle VIN can make duplicates of the keys and register multiple vehicles with the correct VIN. Some VIN thieves can obtain VINs by importing; they go to the port, check the dashboard of any car they have access to and write it down somewhere.
Another potential hazard is when the NIK is duplicated and used for mortgage purposes. This is of particular concern if the cars are of the same make and model. VIN thieves can put a lien on their car using your VIN number, and when a VIN thief gets confiscated, the real owner of the car is the one who gets in trouble.
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This is just one example of VIN fraud that occurs every day. Protection against such scams becomes a very important part of your car buying experience.
It is true. All dealers are required to share the VIN of the car you see so you can keep a history of it as a precaution. They are also allowed to provide you with a free vehicle history report which they obtain from a trusted source to reassure potential buyers that their business and business practices are legitimate. If the seller refuses to share the VIN with you, there is likely a red flag throughout the transaction.
Actually, VIN decoding is a fairly simple process. All you have to do is head over to our decoder, enter your VIN and click on the big ‘Decode Now’ button; You will then be able to see all the information you need about the vehicle whose VIN you just decoded. The best part is that this decoder is free to use!
You can use our license plate checker instead if you don’t have your car’s VIN. The license plate report will also give you the VIN. Just like your fingerprint, your car’s VIN number can tell you all kinds of information, from where it was made and by whom to engine size, safety features, bodywork and production number. This makes it easy to find the right parts for your car and make sure they’re all legit before handing over the cash up front.
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In this guide we provide practical advice on how to read a car’s VIN code and what each letter and number means.
The VIN is found in every car in the world made since 1983, and even though the cars are built on the same production line, no two VINs are the same. They are made up of 17 numbers and letters that represent information about where the car was made and its exact specifications, so you can find out almost everything you need to know about the car from this unique code.
If you spend a lot of time under the hood and like DIY repairs, you should learn how to read your car’s VIN. This will make it easier for you to find the right parts for your car, so you can keep your trusty old machine running longer.
Here we see what each digit in the VIN code means
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