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.
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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.
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