The Vehicle Identification Number, or VIN, is a very important aspect of your car. It can tell you everything you need to know about the vehicle: past accidents, how many owners, and most importantly if it has any marks on the title in terms of a bad title history or a brand.

Throughout this article, I’ll give you resources that shed light on some common VIN-related problems, scams, and solutions. But before we dig any deeper into what the VIN can tell you, we need to talk about what it is, how it came to be, and most importantly, where you can find it.

Let’s take a look at the specifics of where you can find your VIN, what it can tell you, and how important of an item it is. Also, we’ll cover what the difference is between a VIN and a serial number, and a whole lot more. Let’s get started!

What Is a VIN?

Relatively speaking, the VIN we know today is a fairly new thing. 

So, exactly what is a VIN? Literally speaking, it’s a special string of numbers and letters assigned to a specific car for identification purposes. Not a specific model, but a unique, particular car.

The VIN is spread throughout the car in several locations; when a car is stolen for parts, the VIN is the main tool used to identify stolen parts, enabling law enforcement to link stolen components to a specific vehicle that was reported as stolen, providing proof for criminal prosecution. If you’re old enough to remember the 1970s and 1980s, you’ll know auto theft and chop shops were far more prevalent then than they are today – standardized VINs played a big part in that change.

The ancestor of today’s VIN was first used in the automotive assembly process in 1954, however it wasn’t until 1981 that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) mandated a consistent VIN format across all manufacturers, leading to the creation of the 17-digit VIN we know today.

Fun Fact: This is a common misnomer; the NHTSA stipulated that VINs be a standardized 17-digit format in 1981, but it was not law until 1987.

This change required automakers to mark specific high-theft automobile lines with the VIN on their major components, starting with model year 1987 vehicles. Again, the primary goal was to assist local law enforcement in finding and retrieving stolen parts so they could find and bring charges against the responsible persons.

Well, as we all know, "theft recovery" does not mean that the owner will receive their vehicle or its components back; instead, all of these items will be used as evidence in a trial that will take place months or even years from now. Justice in action.

This is why, especially if you come across one of the myriad of high-theft automobiles that exist – which aren’t all Lamborghinis and Mercedes by the way – you should always check that your insurance coverage is sufficient and includes provisions for theft replacement, and ensure that your vehicle’s VINs all match.

Why Does My Car Have a VIN?

If your car was built before 1987, it may have a different format than the standardized 17-digit VIN format we see now, like in the image seen above. 

The main reason for a standardized VIN is to crack down on crime. Again, not to whip a dead horse, but it will probably not get your vehicle back, especially since it has already been stripped for parts. 

It is there to build a case file against the crime ring that stripped your car in the first place. When your car gets stolen, you file a police report. The VIN is on the police report. When they find the car at a chop shop (or worse), they have a case against it. And when they find 20 other stolen cars, that is more charges against the perps.

Standardized VINs have also allowed for a tracking network to arise around maintenance and crash records. You can run your vehicle’s VIN through a tool like our VIN Checker to learn basic things about its history, a vital first step in buying any car in the modern age.

What If My Car’s VIN Doesn’t Look Like That?

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the standardized VIN format was finalized in 1987. While cars older than an ‘87 are becoming increasingly rare on the road, they are not what you would call totally uncommon. 

If your car is older than a 1987, you can definitely take a look at the VIN and see how it is formatted. Until it was standardized, every manufacturer had their own format for the information.

A VIN that old might tell you something about your car, or it might not. It might work in a VIN Checker, it might not. Sometimes even the manufacturer doesn’t know what it means. We’ve seen cases where they slapped a number on there that they’d already used on a different car many years prior to that. Truly different times, and all the more justification for the standardized VINs of today.

What All Does The VIN Tell Me About the Vehicle?

A modern 17-digit VIN tells you a LOT about the vehicle. The VIN is loaded from the factory with all of the highly specific information about your exact vehicle. It has the engine, the trim level, the gross weight of the vehicle, and a bunch of other stuff. 

Oh, and if your VIN is recording a different engine than the one in the vehicle you own or are looking at buying, you might think twice about buying it. 

This actually happened to me about a year ago, which I chronicled here. This instant VIN check stated that the truck had a V-10 gas engine, but it clearly had a Powerstroke diesel. I have no idea how this mess-up slipped through the cracks, but I knew that I didn’t want to be involved with it. That truck had been titled in several states, so it was probably just a careless fat-fingering of the engine number, but who knows how hard that would have been to correct? I didn’t want to find out.

Are There Any Vehicles That Don’t Have VINs?

VINs exist to help keep track of on-road vehicles. Because of this, dedicated off-road vehicles or off-highway vehicles (OHVs) are not equipped with VINs. Also, a surplus military vehicle may not be equipped with a VIN either. They are not designed or intended for street use, so they are not beholden to the same rules.

Rest assured, even the oldest vehicles will have some form of VIN, even if that comes in the form of an engine and chassis number as shown below.

You can still get a street-legal tag and registration for vehicles that don’t have VINs. If this describes your situation, check out our OHV title service. We can help you get your OHV street legal and on the road.

[button: get on the road, service finder]

Where Can I Find The VIN On My Vehicle?

Generally speaking, your VIN will be located on several different parts of the vehicle:

• On the dash, on the driver’s side, so it is visible from the outside of the vehicle. 

• On the driver’s side door jamb. 

• On the underside of the hood.

• Engine block (which is an area that can cause issues, because engines do have to be replaced every now and then).

It is also on the title and registration paperwork for reference. But you need to cross-reference these two to ensure they are all the same.

VINs Are At More Than One Location?

Yes, cars are built to have the VIN on a bunch of locations. The reason is for criminal conviction. If the car is chopped, the parts will be all over the country in no time. They will use the VIN to connect criminal activities. We don’t say this to be doomer pessimists; it is just the truth. Once your car is chopped, you aren’t getting it back, no matter how much you loved it. 

Make sure to pay your insurance premiums. 

What If The VINs Don’t Match?

You should probably do a little bit of research about why the VIN doesn’t match. Was it in a major accident where components were replaced that had the VIN listed? Has the engine been replaced? We strongly suggest you check out the VIN before any vehicle purchase so you know the condition of the title. There is nothing worse than getting into a car and finding out that the title is branded, and you are stuck with it. 

In some states, the DMV will never have a clue what the VIN is beyond what is on the title. But other states, namely the ones that have mandatory annual vehicle inspections, will absolutely figure out that the VINs don’t match.

Run a VIN Check before buying any car, just to be sure.

Parting Thoughts

I speak from personal experience when I say that you need to pull a VIN check before every purchase; it saved me from a lemon for sure. Even if the car is fully operational, title problems can be a nightmare. And if your state requires a VIN inspection as part of the titling process, you will definitely want to know what’s on that VIN record beforehand. Our VIN check is the best way to do that, and give you the peace of mind to know that you aren’t walking into a disaster.

An independent title specialist, like us here at Dirt Legal, can fix VIN mismatch issues and get non-VIN vehicles on the road legally. Use our quick and easy Service Finder to learn the ways we can help you out, or contact our team to find out how we can help you, all backed by our 100% Money Back Guarantee.

Cover image credit: The Car Spy, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Image brightness, curves, and levels adjusted by Dirt Legal. Dirt Legal has not been endorsed by this creator.