Photo: How to decipher a car's main number (Getty Images) Author: Konstantin Shirokun
It would seem to be just a line of numbers and letters – but it contains all the details about the car, right down to the day and city of its production. Moreover, the VIN code helps to tell both the purchase history and the nature of the use of a particular car.
Read about what you can learn from a car’s VIN code in the RBC-Ukraine article.
Cars mean too much to society to make them all indistinguishable from each other – humanity understood this a century ago. And the car manufacturers themselves needed clear identification of each released model (claims, service, repairs, spare parts). Therefore, gradually, factories began to introduce one or another system of numbering their products. At first, it was just “end-to-end” numbering of cars, then some companies began to distinguish models and chassis versions. But over time, this turned out to be insufficient.
What is the VIN code for?
Already in the middle of the last century, when cars produced in different countries and continents began to “mix” around the world, the need arose for a single global vehicle identification system.
And today's seventeen-digit VIN code was created – Vehicle Identification Number. And by the 1980s it had already turned into a kind of vehicle dossier, from which you can find out the main characteristics of not a specific model of a given brand, but each specific example. Although the code is formed according to a single worldwide principle, there are slight differences between brands.
How to decode VIN code
The vehicle identification number contains three groups of characters, both numbers and letters. In particular, all ten numbers and the Latin alphabet are used, with the exception of the letters I, O and Q (since they are similar in spelling to certain numbers). The fact that one car may have a number in a certain place, while another may have a letter, does not contribute to the clarity of coding. And despite everything, with the right approach, confusion does not arise.
– From the first to the third characters. WMI (World Manufacturers Identification) – the code of the car manufacturer (company) according to the standardized world classification;
– From the fourth to the ninth characters. VDS (Vehicle Description Section) – the part that describes the vehicle;
– From the tenth to the seventeenth characters. VIS (Vehicle Identification Section) – the so-called vehicle identification group;
Therefore, each of the named groups is also subject to deciphering, we will talk about this below.
WMI: The first character is the world's geographic area, the second is the country. Both numbers and letters are used.
First WMI character
– from 1 to 5 – North America;
– from 6 to 7 – Oceania;
– from 8 to 9 – South America;
– from A to H – Africa;
– from J to R – Asia;
– from S to Z – Europe;
Second WMI character
Here the country where the specific car was produced is coded. But the second character should only be deciphered together with the first, so a kind of table is used. For example:
Africa
AA-AN South Africa, DA-DE Egypt, EA-EE Ethiopia, EA-EE Ethiopia
Asia
JA-JT Japan, KL-KR Korea, LA-L0 China, MA-ME India, NL-NR Turkey, RF-RK Taiwan
Europe
SA-SM UK, SN-ST Germany, SU-SZ Poland, TJ-TP Czech Republic, TR-TV Hungary, UU-UZ Romania, U5-U7 Slovakia, VA-VE Austria, VF-VR France, VS-VW Spain, WA-W0 Germany, VX-V2 Serbia , XS-XW USSR/CIS, X3-X0 Russia, Y6-Y0 Ukraine, ZA-ZR Italy
North America
1A-10 US, 4A-40 US , 5A-50 US, 2A-20 Canada, 3A-3W Mexico
South America
8A-8E Argentina, 9A-9E Brazil, 93-99 Brazil
Oceania
6A-6W Australia, 7A-7E New Zealand
The third symbol of the WMI code denotes the car manufacturer, and it is also deciphered only in combination with the two previous ones. For example, Ukrainian car factories once had the following codes:
ZAZ – XTE
KrAZ – X1C
LuAZ – XTD Y6L
Eurocar – Y6U
LAZ – Y8A
VDS: the second block of symbols. This group is called descriptive, as it consists of technical information about a specific instance. There is some lack of system with these symbols, because the car manufacturer encrypts these symbols (these are 4-9 characters of the VIN code) at its own discretion.
For example, for the Renault brand, the first letter in the VDS group means the car body type, for example, for Duster it will be H (station wagon). The next two characters for Renault are responsible for belonging to a certain brand family, for the Logan/Sandero/Duster family these are the letters SR. The fourth character of the VDS group (the seventh in the general order of the VIN code) for the same Duster will be the letter A, D, G or H. Each of these letters for the French means a certain configuration of the car. The next letter is the engine model code, and the last letter in the VDS code for the Renault brand is responsible for the transmission type.
For many manufacturers, the ninth digit is an important point of the number, the so-called control digit of the VIN code. It is put by the manufacturer itself, and it becomes clear whether the entire VIN on this car is fake. In this case, the ninth digit of the VIN code is the sum of some previous digits. Sometimes the car manufacturer does not implement this control function of the 9th character, and then the letter Z is put in its place. And sometimes the number or letter in the 9th place means the assembly features of a specific example. For example, the body of the Daewoo Lanos, which is widespread in the world, could be welded in Korea, Poland, Ukraine, and rolled off the assembly line in Ilyichevsk or Zaporozhye.
VIS: the third and last block of VIN-code characters. The first character of this group (the 10th in the whole code) encrypts the year of the car's production. The code here is generally defined, it can be either a letter or a number:
2001 – 1, 2002 – 2, 2003 – 3 and so on. Since 2010, the letters of the Latin alphabet have been used: A – 2010, B – 2011, C – 2012, D – 2013 and so on. However, the letters I, O, Q, U and Z are skipped. Meanwhile, some quite respectable manufacturers (Renault, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota and others) do not encrypt the year of production in their VIN codes.
Next comes the 11th character in the overall count, which designates the factory (plant), on the conveyor of which the car was finally assembled. For example, for the same Lanos, the assembly plant codes were as follows: 0 – ZAO ZAZ (Ukraine), A – Asaka (Uzbekistan), B – Bupyeong (Korea), K – Kunsan (Korea), I – (India), C – Changwon (China), W – FSO (Poland).
Finally, the last five or six characters of the general VIN code (how many exactly depends on the brand). These are the numbers that are called the serial number of the car. Manufacturers count them in their own way, for example, taking into account facelifts or not. Although for the car owner this does not matter at all, because more accurate information is in the first two groups of the code.
In brief
If you are buying a used car, it would be better for you to understand the VIN codes of the given make and model in advance. So that when you get acquainted with the example that you are particularly interested in, you can decipher all the signs and compare them with the actual state of affairs. It is important to do this in advance so that when registering the car after purchase, no discrepancies emerge.
In preparing this article, materials from AutoBild , Motor and information from manufacturing companies were used.
Let us recall that RBC-Ukraine recently reported what is better for a car: a canopy, a garage or a parking lot.