What’s in the VIN

The VIN plate is usually located right by the driver's side of the front window.

Every passenger vehicle sold in this country has a 17-digit serial number known as the Vehicle Identification Number, or VIN. It's found stamped on a metal plate in a number of places, including where the windshield meets the dash in front of the driver. It's also printed on the car's title document and registration. You can confirm the vehicle's place of manufacture, model year, and other information by referring to the VIN.

The first character of the code indicates the country of manufacture: 1 or 4 means USA, 2 is Canada, 3 is Mexico, J is Japan, K is Korea, S is England, W is Germany, and Y is Sweden. The 10th letter or number indicates the model year. The letters T, V, W, X, and Y stand for 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000, respectively. The digits 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 stand for 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006. There are several free VIN-decoder services available on the Internet. A couple of the better ones are from CarFax (www.carfax.com) and the Car Care Council (www.carcare.org, under "Helpful Stats & Info"). A quick check can confirm that the car you are looking at is the same as the documentation says it is.