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.
Read More