May 18 2021
Vehicle data and VIN decoding solutions are widely used across the automotive industry and are the foundation for many businesses. Some of the more common use cases are basic vehicle identification (year, make, model, trim, etc.) or VIN explosion, as covered in the preceding article. However, there are some less obvious uses for vehicle data/VIN decoding that may come as a surprise to you, such as the following:
Read MoreTopics: Automotive Data, VIN, Vehicle Equipment
May 18 2021
There are countless ways in which vehicle data/VIN decoding can be leveraged within a business. And while each business’s use case(s) are different, there are common vehicle datasets that are needed to accomplish their goals.
In this article, we’ve covered some of the most common uses of vehicle data.
Read MoreTopics: Automotive Data, VIN, Vehicle Equipment
Apr 1 2021
Understanding how VIN numbers work and what vehicle data can be extracted from them is a challenge, even for auto industry professionals that are familiar with VIN data. We thought it would be helpful to put together a list of common misconceptions for anyone looking for a vehicle data solution, as there’s a good chance at least one of these will resonate with you.
Read MoreTopics: VIN
Dec 15 2020
This post was updated Dec 2020 with the latest VIN number statistics
Determining the type of transmission installed in a vehicle from VIN alone has traditionally been a challenge. Through the 1990s and even well into the 2000s, most vehicles were offered by OEMs with both manual and automatic transmission options. And, while the NHTSA VIN standard requires OEMs to encode model and engine information into positions 4-8 of the VIN, no requirement exists for encoding transmission type. Even today, while most vehicles are offered with only an automatic transmission, more than 5% of vehicles produced for current model years have standard and manual options available and do not have transmission data encoded in the VIN.
This article explores four common questions about VIN decoding transmission data, and provides suggested solutions for increasing the match rate of decoded transmissions in your inventory or data feed.
Topics: VIN, Vehicle Equipment
Dec 14 2020
This blog has been updated since its original publish date in Dec 2011
Like almost every area of expertise, VIN Decoding has unique terminology associated with it. If you haven't worked with a VIN decoder or VIN data in the past, many of these term's meanings may not be intuitive. Below are the definitions of 25 common terms that you will likely come across as you work with automotive and VIN data.
Read MoreTopics: Automotive Data, VIN
Sep 17 2020
This post has been republished with updates since its original publish date in June 2012
While the light-duty and passenger segments encompass a large portion of the vehicles that one might be looking to VIN decode, it certainly doesn't cover them all. These additional segments, such as mid-duty, heavy-duty, and motorcycles, each represent huge markets with large direct and allied business opportunities. As a result, there is a fair amount of interest in services to VIN decode these vehicles.
Read MoreTopics: VIN
Aug 31 2020
This post has been republished with updates since its original publish date in April 2012
The NHTSA standard for VIN assignment is applied to all motorized vehicles, motorcycles, and trailers that travel on the roads, streets and highways of the US. However, the NHTSA has no jurisdiction over recreational vehicles not intended to ever be driven on a street or highway.
These "off-road" recreational vehicles are hugely popular and account for millions of purchases and tens of millions of vehicles in use in the US every year. As a result, there is a need to decode and identify these vehicles for initial sales and marketing efforts, resale, registration, insurance, and taxation.
Are these vehicles able to be VIN decoded using the same principles and decoders used for light-duty and passenger vehicles? The answer is a solid... maybe.
Topics: Auto Portals, Automotive Data, Vehicle, VIN, Powersports
May 20 2020
All the different vehicle weight terminology can be quite confusing. While some are more obvious than others, the shear mass of information can be daunting. This article was written to take the weight off your chest…
Read MoreTopics: Logistics, Automotive Data, VIN
Dec 9 2019
There’s a lot more to VIN numbers, the 17-digit string of numeric and alphanumeric characters found on vehicles, and the vehicle data behind them than you may expect. In fact, VINs can be quite complex.
Read MoreTopics: VIN
Nov 26 2019
Last month, Jake Maki, our Vice President & General Manager, joined DealerRefresh for their weekly RefreshFriday Facebook Live stream to provide some insight into some of the key challenges vendors face when working with vehicle data. Learn why vehicle data is so complex and how DataOne works to make it more consumable for our end users.
Read MoreTopics: Automotive Data, VIN, Dealers
