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The Vehicle Information Number (VIN) plate on cars is a clever way to communicate everything about a car in a simple, hard-to-duplicate format. Below, we show you how to decode any vehicle's 17-digit VIN number.
The Vehicle Identification Number program was initiated in 1980 as a way to standardize the serial numbers on cars. Cars built before 1981 don't prescribe to a universal standard and therefore require manufacturer-specific information to decode. The entire VIN process was created to assure people don't pretend one car is another.
Knowing how to decode a VIN is an easy way to make sure you're not ripped off by either buying a vehicle pretending to be something it isn't, like a stock Mustang dressed up to be a special edition Cobra, or purchasing a car with a salvage or rebuilt title. But how to do it? The folks at DriverSide.com helped out by giving us some details which we've now expounded upon below:
The vast majority of new cars have the VIN located under the front of the windshield, typically made visible through a small, clear square within the tinted area. Depending on the year and price of the car you're looking at, what's there will vary from a nicely stamped piece of metal to a cheap plastic piece bolted onto the dash. For special models or expensive sports cars there may be a special VIN plate located in the door sill or on the dash.
Once you find the VIN the fun begins!
As you can see in the graphic above, the VIN is broken down into six parts:
Make/Model: (Digits 1-3) This breaks out the make, model and manufacturer of the vehicle.
Vehicle Features: (Digits 4-8) These digits identify the various features of the specific model.
Verifying #: (Digit 9) Using a complex mathematical formula this number determines whether or not the information has been faked.
Model Year: (Digit 10) This number or letter describes the year the MY for the car.
Assembly Plant: (Digit 11) This single digit identifies the assembly plant.
Sequence Of Model Production: (Digit 12-17) These digits indicate the order in which the vehicle left the assembly line.
NOTE: A VIN will never include the letters I, O or Q because of their similarity to the numbers "1" and "0" though, seriously, who confuses a Q with a 0?
We're going to use the VIN: 1ZVHT82H485113456 from the photo above as the sample VIN we work from. By the end, we'll know a lot about this "mystery" vehicle.
Our first decoding challenge is to figure out who made this vehicle, found in the digits: 1ZV
The first digit in the make code will always be the country of manufacture. There are numerous country codes, but the general ones are:
Looking at our code it's clear we're dealing with an American car or a foreign car built in America.
When we add the next two digits to the equation we figure out who the company is that makes it. The full three digit code is called the "World Manufacturer Identifier" and will tell us the company behind the car. Rather than just handing an "F" to Ford or a "G" to GM, the layout gets more detailed. For instance, "1GC" is Chevy trucks and "1G1" is Chevy passenger cars. You can cross reference the WMI with this list of common WMIs
It turns out "1ZV" is the code for AutoAlliance International, which is a company building cars for both Mazda and Ford. This means are car is either a Ford or Mazda product.
More than just telling you what the model of a car is, this section often describes the type of engine and platform the car is using. How this is used is based on the country and company, though most companies selling cars in North America have similar formats. Since we know it's a Ford or Mazda it's fairly easy to decode what HT82H means.
The first digit, H, is a safety code and indicates the car has front and side airbags. Other digits include "B" for the use of active belts but no airbags. The letters "L" and "F" or "K" indicate different generations of airbags.
Digits 5-7, in this case T82, tell us what kind of vehicle this is. Using this handy guide to Ford VINs we know Ford uses "T8_" to indicate a Mustang coupe. Even more exciting, it's a either a Mustang Bullitt, Coupe GT or Coupe Shelby GT. If someone is trying to sell you a Mustang and claims it's a "GT" hardtop but it has "T80" they're lying to you.
The most important digit, if you're trying to determine what engine the car has, is this eighth one. In this case, the digit H indicates we have a car with Ford's 4.6-Liter modular V8. If the digit was an "N" it would indicate a V6 and we'd know something was fishy. If the code was an "S" we'd know we had a Coupe Shelby GT on our hands.
Most companies use the ninth digit, always a number, as a check digit. Using a complex mathmatical equation, they can decide if the value of multiplying all of the numbers and letters in the VIN besides the 9th digit, when divided by 11, has a remainder equal to the check digit.
If you're a total math nerd you can follow these instructions. If you're a little lazier, you can use this calculator to determine if your check digit is correct. Ours is correct, so we know either the VIN plate is legit or, at least, the creator is really good at math.
Since 1980, different countries have used slight variations of model years, but there's a generally accepted format most companies use for the 10th digit. If the car was built between 2001 and 2009 the digits "0-8" which means our vehicle's 8 is telling us it's a 2008 MY vehicle.
If the car was built between 1980 and 2000 the code is goign to be "A-Y" sequentially excluding the three letters not found in any VIN. For example, a car built in 1994 would have the code "R" and a car from 2000 has the digit "Y" on its VIN plate. Starting in 2010, cars reset with the letter "A" for most companies.
The 11th digit is for identifying where the vehicle was made. There's no set standard for this, so you need to consult a list of the company's manufacturing facilities and VIN codes. These are almost all up on Wikipedia. For instance, here's a page with a list of Ford factories. This tells us the 5 in our VIN matches up to the AutoAlliance plant in Flat Rock, Michigan, which makes sense given the first three digits.
The final six digits indicate how far along into production the vehicle was built but, because some companies make a lot of a certain model, this isn't necessarily a number. In the case of our Mustang, the digit is a number: 113456.
For most car owners, this number isn't very significant. For special models, such as limited edition Corvettes or end-of-production vehicles, this can be the best way to determine if the vehicle is what it purports to be. Most Mustangs are produced on the same assembly line so, in this case, we can't determine anything special about the car.
When we zoom out it's clear the car is a 2008 Ford Mustang Bullitt. Compare this to what is shown in the VIN number it appears our car checks out.
For more information about the VIN number check out DriverSide.com
[Supporting Info: Mustang Attitude, CarSpace, Wikipedia, MotiveMag]
Photo Credit: Serious Wheels, dwaycar]
Send an email to Matt Hardigree, the author of this post, at matt@jalopnik.com.
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
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