What is the method to check a vehicle's manufacturing date?
3 Answers
To check a vehicle's manufacturing date, you can follow these methods: 1. Determine the vehicle's manufacturing date based on the body paint data. On the side of the vehicle body, there will be information such as the vehicle identification number, manufacturing date, total vehicle weight, engine model, and rated power. 2. Determine the vehicle's manufacturing date based on the VIN (Vehicle Identification Number). The tenth character in the VIN, whether a letter or a number, indicates the vehicle's manufacturing date. 3. Find out the vehicle's manufacturing date by checking the label information in the engine compartment. The engine label will specify the vehicle model, engine model, engine displacement, and production date. 4. The vehicle's manufacturing date will also be noted in the car's instruction manual.
Last time I helped a friend check out a used car, I taught him this trick: the most straightforward method is to locate the metal nameplate on the door frame, usually found below the driver's side door, which clearly displays the manufacturing year and month. If it can't be found, no worries—every car has a 17-digit VIN (Vehicle Identification Number). You can find it in the lower left corner of the windshield or on the engine compartment nameplate. The 10th character in the VIN indicates the model year—for example, 'L' stands for 2020, and 'M' for 2021. You can cross-reference it with the alphabet to determine the year. Additionally, documents like the Certificate of Conformity (first page), purchase invoice, and the supplementary page of the vehicle registration all list the production date. It's best to keep these documents organized in a folder for easy access.
When I first bought my car, I specifically researched this: flip to the last page of the owner's manual in the vehicle information section, where manufacturers usually print the production date. There's also a more straightforward method—open the hood. Many cars have a white label with black text on the firewall in the engine compartment, which includes the factory code and production date. If you're not familiar with the vehicle's structure, the simplest way is to look at the VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) at the bottom left corner of the windshield. You can search online for a VIN year decoding chart to interpret the 10th digit of the code. Remember to take a clear photo of the entire VIN when documenting it.
