Vehicle identification number

A vehicle identification number (VIN), also called a chassis number, is a unique code, including a serial number, used by the automotive industry to identify individual motor vehicles, towed vehicles, motorcycles, scooters and mopeds, as defined in ISO 3833.

VINs were first used in 1954. From 1954 to 1981, there was no accepted standard for these numbers, so different manufacturers used different formats.

In 1981, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the United States standardized the format. It required all on-road vehicles sold to contain a 17-character VIN, which does not include the letters I (i), O (o), and Q (q) (to avoid confusion with numerals 1 and 0).

There are vehicle history services in several countries that help potential car owners use VINs to find vehicles that are defective or have been written off. See the Used car article for a list of countries where this service is available.

There are at least four competing standards used to calculate the VIN.

Modern VINs are based on two related standards, originally issued by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in 1979 and 1980: ISO 3779 and ISO 3780, respectively. Compatible but different implementations of these ISO standards have been adopted by the European Union and the United States, respectively.

The VIN comprises the following sections:

more than 500 vehicles/year

500 or fewer vehicles/year

more than 2000 vehicles/year

2000 or fewer vehicles/year

The first three characters uniquely identify the manufacturer of the vehicle using the world manufacturer identifier or WMI code. A manufacturer who builds fewer than 2000 vehicles per year uses a 9 as the third digit, and the 12th, 13th and 14th position of the VIN for a second part of the identification. Some manufacturers use the third character as a code for a vehicle category (e.g., bus or truck), a division within a manufacturer, or both. For example, within 1G (assigned to General Motors in the United States), 1G1 represents Chevrolet passenger cars; 1G2, Pontiac passenger cars; and 1GC, Chevrolet trucks.

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