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.