VIN basics
What is a VIN, and where do you find it on the car?
The Vehicle Identification Number is a seventeen-character code that belongs to one vehicle and no other. It is stamped into the car at the factory, and every record worth reading about that car is filed against it.
Where to find it
The VIN appears in several places on the same car, and they should all agree. If two of them do not, stop — a mismatch is the classic signature of a cloned or re-stamped vehicle.
The windscreen plate
Stand outside the car on the driver’s side and look through the bottom corner of the windscreen, where the glass meets the dashboard. A small metal plate carries the VIN. This is the one to trust — it is the hardest to alter without leaving marks.
The door jamb sticker
Open the driver’s door and look at the pillar the door latches onto. A manufacturer sticker there carries the VIN alongside the tyre pressures and the build date.
Under the bonnet or on the chassis
Many manufacturers stamp the VIN directly into the firewall, the strut tower or the chassis rail. On a car you are seriously considering, this is worth finding.
The paperwork
The customs documents, the vehicle licence and the insurance certificate all carry the VIN. Useful for cross-checking — but read the car first and the paperwork second, never the other way round.
How to read it
Seventeen characters, split into three meaningful parts. You do not need to decode it by hand — that is what the free lookup does — but knowing the shape helps you spot a number that is simply wrong.
- Characters 1–3, the WMI. The world manufacturer identifier: who built it and where. A VIN starting with 1, 4 or 5 is a US-built vehicle; J is Japan, K is Korea, W is Germany.
- Characters 4–9, the VDS. The vehicle descriptor — model, body style, engine, restraint system. Character 9 is a check digit calculated from all the others.
- Characters 10–17, the VIS. The model year (character 10), the assembly plant (character 11), and then the serial number unique to that car coming off that line.
The letters I, O and Q never appear in a VIN, precisely because they are too easily confused with 1 and 0. If you have read one of those off a plate, look again.
Why the VIN and not the plate number?
A plate number identifies a registration, not a car. Plates get transferred, re-issued, and cloned onto stolen vehicles. The VIN is stamped into metal at the point of manufacture, which is why the American title system, the Nigerian customs entry and the police stolen-vehicle register all key off it.
It also means the history follows the car across borders. A Camry that was written off in Texas, shipped to Lagos and re-registered here keeps the same VIN throughout — and the Texas salvage record is still attached to it.
What the VIN can tell you before you pay anything
Type a VIN into the box on our homepage and the free decode returns the make, model, year, engine, body style and assembly plant straight from the manufacturer database. That alone catches a surprising number of misrepresentations — a seller describing a 2013 as a 2016, or a lower trim as a higher one.
The paid report is what comes next: the accident and salvage history, the odometer trail, the customs duty status and the theft checks.
Check the VIN on the car, not the one you were sent
Read the seventeen characters off the windscreen plate or the door jamb yourself, with the car in front of you. A VIN forwarded over WhatsApp is a VIN for some car — not necessarily the one you are being shown.
Try it with a VIN
Paste the seventeen characters and we will decode them free — make, model, year and plant, before any payment.
17 characters, on the dashboard at the base of the windscreen, the driver’s door frame, or the vehicle papers. Checking the VIN is free — you only pay for the history.