Vehicle Identification Number Reveal the Truth About Your Car

Obviously when looking at the history of a vehicle it is very important to know its true origins. Whether you are planning to buy a truck and need to know its background, or you are looking to sell your vehicle and want to provide the most detailed information on it to potential buyers, it's important to know where to research this information on the Internet.

Since the beginning of the 20th century every vehicle produced that is sold in the world includes a unique identifier called a VIN (Vehicle Identification Number). Every VIN contains vital information that acts like a fingerprint for that car or truck. Every vehicle can be identified by its VIN.

Up until 1981 each car maker was allowed to create whatever system they wanted to use to identify their vehicles. This led to mass confusion with no easy way to determine what vehicle a VIN represented just by looking at it. The problem was solved by an industry standard 17-character VIN format that was released in 1981. If you want to read the older formats there are several resources on the Internet, but only Decode This! (http://www.decodethis.com) provides a free Vehicle Indentification Number decoder that will decode all early VINs from a single source.

The modern VIN format is divided into several sections that allows certain information to be determined from the identifier. Each make, for example, is identified by the first few characters. The VIN also includes the model year, engine code, and a six-digit serial number. Taken together this code makes up the VIN. Again, Decode This! provides a detailed modern VIN decoder to allow you to automatically decode this information.

It is important to realize the VIN includes a lot of information but there are things that it does NOT include. There is no code on the specific optional equipment items installed on an individual vehicle. Since the VIN is assigned to the car or truck at the beginning of the assembly line, and the optional equipment items are installed later in the process, the VIN has no information on this optional equipment. This means the VIN can tell you the possible equipment that was available for a particular model, but it will not be a vehicle history report on a particular car or truck. The original manufacturers have this information in separate databases that they license for use to certain vendors.

Commercial and free VIN decoders such as Decode This! take the VIN and using a database of information provide the information contained in that identifier in an easy to understand format. Decode This! for example has an extensive on all the information available for each model year and manufacturer of cars and trucks in the US. You can get a detailed report of the information available for your car.

A variety of applications can use this VIN data to provide a way to quickly identify a vehicle. WindowSticker.us (http://www.windowsticker.us), a custom car window sticker application, uses the VIN to determine the make, model, and year, as well as what the standard and optional equipment was available for the model year. It also can determine the possible internal and external color choices that were available.

So when you're looking for information about a vehicle the Vehicle Identification Number is an important place to start.

About the Author

The author has developed VIN number decoders that process collected information about vehicles. He's also a known authority on automotive applications such as the Vehicle Equipment Sticker web site known as WindowSticker.us.

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