Car identification number or vehicle identification number (VIN) is used for identifying the exact model of car you have and the engine that was put into it when it was manufactured. In fact the vehicle identification number (VIN) is the DNA of the car. The vehicle identification number gives an accurate description of the vehicle. Each car has a unique vehicle identification number.

The Vehicle identification number includes 17 characters. The characters include capital letters A through Z and numbers 1 through 0. The position of each character in the VIN gives important information about the place and date of manufacture of your car, the type of engine included in the car, the series or model of the car, equipment/attributes of the car and the production sequence of the car.

The 1st character of your car's vehicle identification number indicates the country where it was manufactured. The 2nd character of your car's vehicle identification number indicates the manufacturer of the car. The 3rd character of the vehicle identification number indicates the vehicle type or manufacturing division. This varies among car makes and models. The 4rth to 8th characters of the vehicle identification number indicates the car's features/attributes, such as body style, engine type, model, series, etc. The 9th character of the vehicle identification number is a VIN accuracy check digit which is used to verify the accuracy of the transcription of the vehicle identification number. The 10th character of the vehicle identification number indicates the model year of the car. The 11th character of the vehicle identification number indicates the assembly plant for the car. The 12th to 17th Characters of the vehicle identification number are useful in identifying the correct part numbers for ignition, fuel, emission and engine components.

You can find the vehicle identification number of your car at several locations on your car, the most common location being on the door frame/door post of the front doors, dash near the windshield, engine, car's firewall, left-hand inner wheel arch, steering wheel/steering column, radiator support bracket, and on your car's registration book, guarantee/maintenance book and declaration page of your auto insurance policy.

Using the vehicle identification number of a vehicle, you can easily know the history of the vehicle. That is you can know the vehicle details such as Salvage history and multiple owner history of the vehicle. You can also know the whether the vehicle is stolen or rescued vehicle, insurance claim vehicle or not, totaled or reclaimed vehicle, odometer tampering details, and whether the vehicle is subjected to water or flooded damage, major body frame damage, fire or related damage, etc.

The VIN is very useful when buying a used car. Using VIN of a car, you can check the history of the used car you are willing to buy. Using the correct VIN record of the used car, you can find if the car was subjected to major accident damage or not. You can also find out whether car is a stolen or salvaged car, and whether it is an insurance claim car or not. Thus by using the vehicle identification number, you can ensure to buy the right used car.

The correct VIN of your car is needed to properly identify the exact part numbers needed for your auto repairs. It helps in identifying the repair parts that will fit exactly with your car.