Free VIN decoder

Type a chassis number and this page tells you what the car is — the model year, the make, the model, the engine it left the factory with and the plant that built it. It costs nothing, there is nothing to sign up for, and it answers in about a second.

What the number itself says

Every car built for the road since 1981 carries the same seventeen characters, and the first eleven of them are a description written by the manufacturer: who built it, in which country, in which model year, with which body, which engine and which restraint system. A decoder reads that description back out. It is public information, which is why this page gives it away.

And what it does not say

Anything that happened after the car left the plant. The number describes the vehicle as it was built, so it carries no accidents, no odometer readings, no branded title, no theft record and no auction history. Two cars can decode to exactly the same line here and one of them be a clean single-owner car and the other a flood write-off, because the difference between them was never written into the number.

In the glossary:Branded title·Odometer rollback·Title washing

Where the number is on the car

Stamped on a plate at the base of the windscreen on the driver’s side, on a sticker in the driver’s door jamb, and printed on the registration and the insurance papers. All four carry the same seventeen characters.

Where to find your VIN, with a drawing of each place