Each car constructed after 1981 has a unique vehicle identification number, or VIN. The situation of this string of letters and numbers varies, but it surely’s situated someplace on each automobile, SUV, bike and truck – usually on a small steel plate or a sticker.

VINs serve many functions. They assist shoppers learn about a used car’s history, together with whether or not it was stolen, or decide whether or not rebates for a particular electric vehicle can be found. This code seems within the paperwork essential to do every part from insuring your automobile to promoting it.

I research data standards and have become eager about VINs whereas doing analysis for my guide in regards to the cultural history of barcodes.

Like barcode numbers, a VIN’s characters are standardized. They will inform a narrative if you already know what to search for.

What VINs can let you know

VINs can convey a minimum of seven items of data.

1. Origin
   If a VIN begins with a 1, 4 or 5, which means it’s a car assembled within the U.S. Many other countries have their own distinctive identifier. A 2, for instance, means the car was made in Canada; a J stands for Japan.

2. Producer
   The second and third characters point out the producer. In some circumstances, the code corresponds with a line of automobiles that now belongs to a bigger company. Dodge and Jeep, now a part of Stellantis, every has its personal. So does Lincoln, which became a division of Ford Motor Co. in 1922.

3. Description
   The fourth by eighth characters present a number of particulars, resembling physique kind and engine kind.

4. Safety
   The ninth character is a “verify digit” decided by a complex mathematical equation primarily based on the remainder of the VIN’s numbers and letters. This digit, both a quantity or the letter X, is used to authenticate that the VIN is just not a forgery.

5. 12 months
   The tenth character signifies the mannequin yr. There’s just one slot for this, and never all letters and numbers are used, leading to repetition. An R may sign both 2024 or 1994, for instance.

6. Manufacturing unit
   The eleventh character signifies the particular plant the place the car was assembled.

7. Serial quantity
   The VIN’s remaining six characters compose a serial quantity that differentiates the car from all others made in the identical manufacturing facility which might be the an identical kind and mannequin yr.

Discovering extra data

Solely consultants can inform the place a car was assembled or what kind of engine it has by its VIN. However assist is on the market.

The Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration gives a useful VIN decoder. Once I plugged my car’s VIN into the decoder, the positioning appropriately decided that my SUV is a 2011 Subaru Forester with an automated transmission.

After all, I already knew all that.

What I didn’t notice was that it weighs between 4,000 and 5,000 kilos, has a 2.5-liter engine and options facet curtain airbags to guard the motive force and passengers in the back and front seats. I additionally discovered that this Subaru Forester was assembled in Gunma, Japan.

These particulars had been invisible to me as a client, however that they had been inside simple attain ever since I purchased my Forester in 2018. I had in some way pushed that automobile effectively over 100,000 miles with out realizing the quantity on the facet of my driver’s seat contained some historical past.

Earlier than shopping for the Forester, despite the fact that I didn’t know that my VIN may say a lot, I did run it by a free online system to verify it hadn’t been stolen.

To make certain, VINs received’t let you know every part you would possibly need to find out about a car, resembling what coloration it was when it rolled off the road. But when you are able to do slightly decoding and make use of broadly accessible on-line instruments, they do harbor necessary data.