How to Decode Your VIN

Vehicle identification numbers for car or truck, or VIN, are a combination of 17 letters and numbers. Every vehicle on the road has a unique VIN, such as someone's fingerprints. Vin can appear as a series of characters that cannot be understood, but when translated, offers a lot of information about individual vehicles, including producers, where it is built, type of vehicle, engine size, year model, trim level, airbag type and whatever data remember.

VIN decoder is easy to find and is usually displayed in two or three places. They include:

• The plates labeled on the driver's side of the dashboard and windshield met
• Stickers on the door on the driver's side (stickers containing VIN in the form of alphanumerics and barcode)
• QR code in the doorjamb sticker
• Labeled on the Machine Firewall

String 17 letters and characters can be broken down into several zones that represent various types of information.

Three numbers and the first letter consist of identifying Wold, or WMI producers. The SAE International engineering company has been contracted by the National Road Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, to oversee the distribution of WMI code for NHTSA US itself set a standard for identifying 17 characters in 1981.

The second character stands for carmakers. Sometimes this is the first letter of the name of the manufacturer like S for Subaru, G for General Motors or A for Audi. But "A" can also signify Jaguar or Mitsubishi.

The third character completes the picture. Combined with the first two characters to provide a type of vehicle or manufacturing division. For example, the complete WMI code used by Motors for the Chevrolet passenger car division is N. So, the first three digits on Chevrolet Tahoe or Suburban are 1GN.