Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs) are used to uniquely identify motor vehicles. They consist of 17 characters that do not include the letters I, O or Q.
The first three characters uniquely identify the manufacturer, make and type of vehicle. A manufacturer that builds less than 500 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).
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2 Model Year Encoding 3 Check Digit Calculation 4 Example 5 Perl Source Code |
first character
| second character
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The second section consists of five characters (VIN positions 4-8) and identifies the attributes of the vehicle. For each type of vehicle (passenger cars, MPVs, trucks, buses, trailers, motorcycles, incomplete vehicles other than trailers) different information is required. For cars, MPVs and light trucks, the first two characters of this section are alphabetic, the third and fourth numeric and the fifth alphanumeric.
The third section consists of one character that is the check digit, calculated over the other 16 characters of the VIN. This character can be numeric or the letter X.
The fourth section consists of eight characters on positions 10-17 of the VIN. The last five are numeric for cars, MPVs and light trucks and the last four are numeric for all other vehicles. The first character represents the vehicle model year and the second character represents the plant of manufacture. The third through eighth characters are a sequential production number for manufacturers producing more than 500 vehicles per year. For smaller manufacturers, the sixth, seventh and eight position represent the sequential production number.
| A: 1 | J: 1 | |
| B: 2 | K: 2 | S: 2 |
| C: 3 | L: 3 | T: 3 |
| D: 4 | M: 4 | U: 4 |
| E: 5 | N: 5 | V: 5 |
| F: 6 | W: 6 | |
| G: 7 | P: 7 | X: 7 |
| H: 8 | Y: 8 | |
| R: 9 | Z: 9 |
Secondly, look up the weight factor for each position in the VIN except the 9th (the position of the check digit).
| 1st: ×8 | 5th: ×4 | 10th: ×9 | 14th: ×5 |
| 2nd: ×7 | 6th: ×3 | 11th: ×8 | 15th: ×4 |
| 3rd: ×6 | 7th: ×2 | 12th: ×7 | 16th: ×3 |
| 4th: ×5 | 8th: ×10 | 13th: ×6 | 17th: ×2 |
Thirdly, multiply the numbers and the numerical values of the letters by their assigned weight factor, and sum the resulting products. Divide the sum of the products by 11. The remainder is the check digit. If the remainder is 10, the check digit is the letter X.
