How to Check a Vehicle's VIN Code?
4 Answers
Locations to check a vehicle's VIN code: 1. Below the door; 2. Left side of the front windshield; 3. Inside the engine compartment or on the driver's door pillar; 4. On the vehicle insurance certificate or vehicle registration card. The vehicle's VIN code consists of 17 letters and numbers, each representing: 1. The 1st digit indicates the country or region of manufacture; 2. The 2nd to 3rd digits represent the manufacturer and vehicle type; 3. The 4th to 8th digits provide information on the vehicle's category, series, body type, and engine type; 4. The 9th digit is the check digit; 5. The 10th digit indicates the model year; 6. The 11th digit is the assembly plant code; 7. The 12th to 17th digits represent the production serial number.
Every time I teach friends to check the VIN, I tell them to first look under the lower left corner of the windshield – there's usually a small transparent window revealing the 17-digit code. However, last time when helping my neighbor inspect a used car, we encountered an unexpected situation: the VIN plate on her older SUV model was actually hidden beneath the rubber seal on the driver's side door frame. Honestly, the most reliable method is to pop the hood – the metal plate at the front of the engine compartment always bears the VIN, and it's also commonly found on the firewall area below the wipers. By the way, the vehicle registration certificate and insurance documents definitely contain the complete chassis number – I recommend taking photos of these paper records as backups. In cases where the original VIN is unreadable due to collision damage, some vehicle models have secondary stamped codes in places like the spare tire well or along the side of the front passenger seat rails.
With a decade of car repair experience, I've seen VINs in all sorts of locations. Nowadays, new vehicles commonly place a reflective sticker at the lower left corner of the windshield. Older German models preferred engraving it on the side of the engine block, while Japanese cars typically stick it near the B-pillar door latch. Last month, a customer couldn't find the VIN after windshield modification—only to discover an imprint strip hidden in the spare tire tool compartment. Reminder: During vehicle ownership transfer when frame number imprinting is required, DMV officers will inspect the original manufacturer's stamp under the front passenger floorboard—a spot 90% of owners don't know about. Also, some right-hand drive USDM models position the VIN on the right side of the dashboard, requiring left-hand reach to feel the raised numbering.
As a girl who often helps family members check cars, I think the simplest way is to start the vehicle and call the voice assistant: most new models support the 'query VIN' command. After binding with the mobile app, you can also find this string of numbers in the electronic manual. I remember when I first inspected a car myself, I felt raised engravings under the plastic cover on the passenger side sill, and later learned it's called a laser micro-engraved anti-counterfeiting code. Now, new electric vehicles make it even easier: there's a QR code label next to the charging port, and scanning it directly displays the VIN and battery information. However, it's still advisable to memorize the traditional locations, as during annual vehicle inspections, staff will focus on checking whether the labels on the windshield, door frame, and engine compartment match.
