Online services are available for VIN lookup. However, you can also do the lookup yourself if you know how to go about it. What you will need though is a lot of patience and determination to figure it out accurately. Here is a guide on some important characters that will help you on how to go about your car’s VIN decoder.

• The first Character shows the Continent the car was manufactured in
  • A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H – These indicate that the vehicle was made in Africa
  • J,K,L,M,N,P and R – These mean that the car was manufactured in Asia
  • S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, and Z – means the car was made in Europe
  • 1,2,3,4, and 5 – mean the place of manufacture is either North America, USA, Mexico or Canada
  • 6 and 7 – manufactured in Australia or New Zealand
  • 8 and 9 – place of manufacture is South America
• The second and third characters show more of which company manufactured the car such as
  • Toyota
  • Nissan
  • Honda
  • Volkswagen
  • BMW
  • Ford
  • Mercedes, etc.
• The tenth character shows the model year
  • A,B,C,D,E,F,G, and H is between 1980 and 1987 or between 2017 and 2017
  • J,K,L, M and N is for 1988 to 1992 or 2018 to 2022
  • P is for 1993 or 2023
  • R,S and T mean 1994 to 1996 or 2024 to 2026
  • V,W,X and Y are for years between 1997 and 200 or 2027 and 2030
  • 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, and 9 are for years 2001 to 2009 or 2031 to 2039
  • I, O, Q, U, Z and 0 are never used as the tenth character in VIN numbers.
• The Seventh Character will help you check whether your car is old or new
  • If the character is a number, then your car was manufactured earlier than 2010
  • If it is a letter, the model was manufactured between 2010 and 2039

Conclusion

A VIN number comprises of 17 characters. However, some knowledge on some important characters will tell you where the car was manufactured, where and by which company.