VIN Decoder
Any Vehicle. Instantly.
Enter any 17-character VIN to decode the year, make, model, engine, and recall history. Powered by the NHTSA — completely free, no signup required.
Enter any 17-character VIN to decode the year, make, model, engine, and recall history. Powered by the NHTSA — completely free, no signup required.
Every vehicle manufactured since 1981 has a unique 17-character Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) — your car's fingerprint, no two alike. Decoding it reveals the year, make, model, engine specs, country of manufacture, plant location, and open safety recalls. This tool queries NHTSA's official database; the answer above is theirs, not ours.
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Build My Shop Site →A VIN reveals the year, make, model, trim, engine size, transmission, drivetrain, body style, country and plant of manufacture, and any open NHTSA safety recalls. It is the single most authoritative identifier on a vehicle and is encoded to a federal standard every automaker must follow.
Check the driver-side dashboard through the windshield at the base, the driver door jamb sticker, your insurance card, or the vehicle title. On many engines it is also stamped into the firewall or strut tower. All five locations will show the same 17 characters.
Mileage is not encoded in the VIN — it lives with the title and odometer. Ownership history is privacy-protected under the Driver's Privacy Protection Act. For mileage and owner-count you need a paid service like Carfax or AutoCheck that aggregates DMV and insurance data.
The letters I, O, and Q look too similar to the numbers 1 and 0. FMVSS 115 and ISO 3779 ban them so VINs can be read reliably when they are hand-written on titles, copied from dusty engine bays, or scanned by OCR software at ports and auctions.
Yes. Every decode cross-references the NHTSA recall database for the decoded make, model, and year. Open campaigns are listed with the component, failure summary, consequence, and remedy. Dealerships repair open safety recalls free of charge regardless of vehicle age.
Yes. A VIN is not sensitive personal data — it is printed on the outside of your windshield. We do not store lookups, do not require signup, and do not link the VIN to any identity. The underlying data comes from the public NHTSA vPIC database.
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