How to check a car by VIN

American manufacturers began using the VIN code as early as 1977. Today, every car that is produced in the world has a unique number. Thanks to the VIN code, it has become easier to identify vehicles and track their history. In this article, we will tell you how to check a car by VIN number, what information can be obtained thanks to such a check.

Why is it important to check your car before buying?

In the United States, on average, about 150,000 road traffic accidents are registered annually. In most cases, they occur with serious damage to the vehicles themselves. In addition to road accidents, the country has unfavorable statistics of car damage as a result of natural disasters. Given these circumstances, buying a used car involves a lot of risk for the buyer. Checking the vehicle by VIN code will avoid these risks.

How to check car history by VIN

When buying a car through dealerships, the buyer gets free access to some verification services. If you buy a car from auctions and other trading platforms, you can independently check the history of the car by the VIN number.

The most reliable services for checking a car for the USA by VIN:

• Carfax;
• Autocheck;
• Window Sticker;
• CheckCar.vin.

Carfax

Carfax was founded in 1984. Before its advent, motorists did not have the opportunity to find out information about the car. The only test available was a technical inspection by a qualified technician at a service station.

The Carfax database contains records of millions of vehicles registered in Canada, the US and Europe. Information that can be found in the audit report:

• police information about the accident;
• real odometer readings according to entries in maintenance logs;
• registration history with data on all previous owners;
• service history;
• theft data;
• basic equipment;
• recall of this model series by the manufacturer.

Autocheck

The Autocheck service collects and includes in the report general information about the technical characteristics of the model, and also checks the car for the following factors:

• odometer readings for a specific date;
• special operating conditions – work in the taxi service, the police;
• sale on the gray market;
• damage;
• falsification of mileage data;
• recall by the manufacturer;
• details of the accident (place, date of the accident);
• loss of insurance, etc.

One of the advantages of the Autocheck service is a rating system with scoring a car and comparing the rating with other cars with similar characteristics.

Window Sticker

The WinSticker is a vehicle window decal that must be on every new vehicle in the US. The sticker contains all the basic information about the car:

• car type;
• body type;
• paint color;
• year of issue;
• manufacturer’s suggested retail price;
• basic equipment and technical characteristics;
• fuel consumption parameters.

When buying a car, all this information can be obtained from the verification report in the WinSticker service. This information in itself is not very informative, so that it can be used to make a purchase decision, but in combination with reports from other services it will be very useful.

CheckCar.vin

To obtain comprehensive information about the car, experts recommend doing a comprehensive check using different databases. If you want to immediately get the most complete report on the history of the car, use the Checkcar.vin service. Here you can get basic information about the car or a full report with a detailed description of the history for free.

The verification service is multilingual, you can order a verification in English, French, Ukrainian, Arabic, Spanish or Russian). The uniqueness of Checkcar.vin is that it collects data from all available sources of information and thus saves you time and money as much as possible. The report is generated instantly, the site has a clear interface and the simplest form of verification.

Here you can check the car by VIN code in Autocheck, and for this you just need to enter the identification number in the active window and click “Check”.

What can you find out from the VIN of the car

The vehicle’s VIN contains the following information:

• data about the brand and the country of the manufacturer, the country of assembly;
• model year;
• model, body type, wheelbase, etc.;
• equipment (engine, transmission, security systems);
• serial number (an individual code that is assigned to each vehicle at the factory).

If you use the VIN decoder, then in addition to the basic configuration and initial characteristics, you can get the most useful information on the history of the car.