VIN Basics Blog

If you're having trouble decoding vehicles in your inventory, consider this list of errors and challenges commonly faced when working with Vehicle Identification Numbers.

As we explained in our article "Vehicle Styles and VIN-to-Style Matching Explained", VINs often are not encoded with enough information to determine a single vehicle style. This means that important details such as MSRP, MPG, and certain standard installed equipment may not known based on the VIN alone. If you're working with DMS data, there's a good chance that you have additional, valuable data at your disposal that you can use along with the VIN to decode down to a single vehicle style.

I was reading an interesting article on-line today about Apple's sales in 2011.  It noted that Mac sales are rising fast and that 2011 was the best year ever for Mac sales.  "Somewhat interesting, I guess", you say.  But hear is the interesting part: In 2011 alone Apple sold more iOS devices then it has sold Macs over their 28 year existence. Granted Macs have not been the most popular computer over the years but the fact that iOS devices outsold 28 years of the Mac in a single year is pretty remarkable.  It is just further evidence that mobile is not the next big thing, it has become the current big thing and only is continuing to grow.

We found an interesting study this morning published by Google which describes consumer automotive shopping behavior in 2011. Some highlights below here as well as a link to Google direct for the full presentation.

NADA 2012 this year was in one of my favorite cities out of the four city rotation - Las Vegas, Nevada. Las Vegas is an exciting city to visit under any circumstances and this excitement and energy definitely carries over into the expo. While talking with an old friend in the lobby - we were both surprized as music suddenly blared over the PA system and to my further surprize a flash mob organized in the middle of several hundred folks in the lobby into a line dance. Only in Las Vegas.

US and Canadian VINS are required to contain a certain level of information about the vehicle, including year, make, model, body style, engine, restraint system, and GVWR. However, a lot of important vehicle details are encoded in the VIN by some OEMs, and not by others. Working with VIN data can be tricky business when they're used in different ways by the 40+ US passenger vehicle makes. This article explains a few key concepts related to VIN decoding and something called style matching, that are critical to working with VIN data successfully.

Oftentimes we don't look for the spare tire in our vehicles until we are on the side of the road with a flat tire.  Once in that situation you may be checking frantically for it.  You check the trunk or rear cargo area, under the rear of the vehicle but it is nowhere to be found.  It may be that you are one of many consumers that have purchased a vehicle without a spare tire. AAA has noticed the growing trend of vehicles without spare tires and reports the trend is likely to continue in a recent article online

Determining the installed transmission type from VIN alone has traditionally been hit-or-miss. Not knowing the transmissions installed in the vehicles in your inventory can present a number of challenges. Unfortunately, the existing VIN standards do not require OEMs to encode transmission information directly in the VIN. However, due to a gradual decrease in transmission options over time, this is becoming easier. This article explores four common questions about VIN decoding transmission data, and provides suggested solutions for significantly increasing the match rate of decoded transmissions in your inventory or data feed.

In recent years, there have been fewer and fewer vehicles offered with a manual transmission.  Automotive News recently stated in an article that only 5-7% of new vehicles sold in the US have a manual transmission.  This has resulted in more VIN decodes being transmission specific, which is a nice benefit to those of us doing VIN decoding.  However, the manual transmission will be missed by both me personally and by dealers everywhere.

If you're using an automotive data provider for VIN decoding, you probably have a few vehicles in inventory that your data provider cannot decode. Some of these might be classic cars, vehicles sold in Europe or Asia then imported into the US, Trailers, or other types of vehicles that your data provider simply does not support. However, it's likely that some of these vehicles cannot be decoded because the VIN number is just plain incorrect, usually due to human error when reading the VIN off the vehicle. Fortunately, there are a number of ways to determine a VIN is invalid. You can employ these methods to isolate your invalid VINs and either make automated corrections or go back to the field to get the correct VIN off your vehicle.