How To Read A Toyota Vin Number

Toyota / By
  • Country of Manufacture, first digit.
  • Secondly and thirdly: Manufacturer.
  • Vehicle Brand, Engine Size, and Type 4th8th digits.
  • Security Code, the ninth digit.
  • Model Year is the tenth digit.
  • Plant of Assembly, the eleventh digit.
  • Serial Number, 12th17th digits.

What does the Toyota VIN stand for?

The make, model, and manufacturer are identified by the first three digits of the VIN.

The vehicle’s trim level or series, engine, and typically (but not always) transmission are represented by digits five through eight.

The ninth character serves as a “check digit” intended to confirm the VIN’s legitimacy, similar to the magnetic strips seen on paper money. The other numbers in the VIN are used in a mathematical procedure to determine it.

The tenth number is the year your specific Toyota model was introduced, and the eleventh number tells you which plant built your car.

The last six-digit number that Toyota uses to internally identify each vehicle While it is frequently believed that these numerals represent the production date of a vehicle (for example, 000001 would represent the first automobile built, while 000002 would represent the second), this is not necessarily the case.

These model years correlate to the year of production for the 10th digit:

  • A1980 OR 2010
  • B1981 OR 2011
  • C1982 OR 2012
  • D1983 OR 2013
  • E1984 OR 2014
  • F1985 OR 2015
  • G1986
  • H1987
  • I’m nonexistent. You’re focusing on position one.
  • J1988
  • K1989
  • L1990
  • M1991
  • N1992
  • OD is nonexistent. The tenth digit is neither zero nor the letter “O.

How can I figure out my VIN number?

figuring out your VIN

  • You can find out where in the world the car was produced from the first character.
  • The manufacturer is indicated by the second character.
  • The division or type of vehicle is indicated by the third character.
  • You can learn the vehicle brand, body style, engine size and type, model, and series from the fourth through the eighth characters.

What is a Toyota VIN?

The Toyota VIN is a distinct 17-digit alphanumeric identifier that serves as the global fingerprint for every Toyota car and motorcycle. The VIN can reveal crucial information about any car for both current and potential Toyota owners. The Toyota VIN is your best friend if you want to ensure that the specifications given in a car ad are accurate or want to be sure you’re not purchasing stolen goods.

What does the Toyota VIN contain?

Three components make up the Toyota VIN’s basic structure:

  • Index of Global Manufacturers (digits 1-3). Any VIN’s first three characters will identify the vehicle’s country of manufacture, manufacturer, and vehicle class.

What are the three crucial VIN digits?

The first digit designates the nation of manufacture or the last location where your car was put together.

  • The second digit identifies the producer and the area where your car was made.
  • The kind or manufacturing division of your car is indicated by the third digit when combined with the first two.

What do a VIN’s first three digits represent?

The world manufacturer identifier is the first trio of digits and letters in a VIN (WMI). The nation of origin is indicated by the first digit or letter in this category. For instance, American-made automobiles begin with 1, 4, or 5. Mexico is three, Canada is two.

WMI

The nation of origin or ultimate processing facility is indicated by the first digit of the VIN number. For instance, the numerals 1, 4, and 5 denote the United States, whereas 2 denotes Canada and 3 denotes Mexico. WMI ratings are given to nations and companies by the Society of Automotive Engineers. The manufacturer’s identifying digit follows, such as “G” for General Motors, “C” for Chrysler, and “B” for BMW.

The type of vehicle, such as whether it is a truck, SUV, or automobile, may be determined by the third digit when coupled with the first two. A Chevrolet truck’s VIN, for instance, would begin with “1GC.” G for General Motors, C for Truck, and 1 for the US, the nation of origin

Vehicle Identification Section (VIS)

Model year is the tenth digit. Years can be quickly determined using the table below. Therefore, if the 10th digit is a “D,” the car is a 2013 model.

Vehicle identification number

The year, make, and model of your car are always requested at auto parts retailers. However, they also require information regarding your engine. Don’t know exactly what’s inside or what year it is? VIN numbers can be used to determine engine size. On the driver’s side of your windshield, locate it in the lowest corner. Your vehicle identifying number, or VIN, can be used to determine the size of your engine.

The model year is indicated by the tenth number from the left, while the engine codes are indicated by the eighth number. You only need to mention those two characters to the store clerk to get started.

Can I search up my car’s specifications using the VIN?

Using a VIN decoder tool to determine a vehicle’s specifications just requires a VIN number. Some VIN decoding services, usually those intended for commercial usage, let users provide both the complete 17-digit VIN and the VIN pattern (characters 18, 10, and 11). For companies who might not always have complete VINs on hand, this functionality is helpful.

Businesses that frequently engage with VINs will desire to license a VIN decoding solution that can be instantly included into their internal system or user-facing application (s). The easiest and most effective way to do this is by using a VIN decoder API. Smaller companies that handle a limited number of VINs each month might think about investing in or subscribing to a solution with built-in VIN decoding functionality.

What does G in Toyota stand for?

Those who are familiar with Toyota have undoubtedly seen the TRD logo on a variety of automobiles. This abbreviation refers for Toyota Racing Development, a long-running tuning and racing division of the firm that transforms standard models into genuine off-roaders and, more recently, better-handling variations of vehicles like the Camry and Avalon. However, the newest sports vehicle from the manufacturer, the Toyota Supra, is officially known as the GR Supra and lacks any TRD letters. What gives, then?

GR stands for Gazoo Racing, with the word “garage” in the name Gazoo. It’s an additional Toyota performance offshoot, and it’s even cooler than you might have thought. Before becoming the company’s current president, Akio Toyoda founded the GR sub-brand as a sort of skunkworks project. Over time, it evolved into the organization’s specialized motorsports branch and expanded to include the creation of performance street cars for Toyota. Among other series, the GR brand competes in the World Rally Championship and the World Endurance Championship.

Outside of its racing endeavors and outside of the United States, the GR team and brand have introduced several Japanese-market cars that you may not be familiar with. The Mark X GRMN, for instance, was an Avalon-sized, rear-wheel-drive vehicle with a V-6 engine, a limited-slip differential, and a six-speed manual transmission. The difference between this and the original BMW M5 is not great. A GR version of the CH-R, a GR version of the 86 sports car, and the nasty, just unveiled GR Yaris are some other cars you won’t find in the United States. As of this writing, the business is also developing the 986-horsepower hybrid hypercar known as the GR Super Sport concept. It was developed using Toyota’s experience from Le Mans and other WEC events, and it and other GR vehicles may soon be arriving in America. It’s also important to note that TRD will coexist with the other brands and won’t disappear.

We’d definitely welcome more GR models in the United States based on our experience with the GR Supra, which has more power, a new engine option, and a larger lineup for 2021. The Gazoo Racing combination of sporty suspension tuning, engine enhancements, and aggressive style are incredibly effective weapons against Toyota’s long-standing and, to be honest, fairly accuratereputation as a builder of automotive appliances. What model will be the next GR in America? We are hoping that the wait time will be short.

Does your transmission’s VIN number reveal anything?

It has historically been difficult to identify a vehicle’s transmission type from its VIN alone. The majority of automobiles were provided by OEMs with both manual and automatic transmission options throughout the 1990s and even into the early 2000s. Additionally, while the NHTSA VIN standard mandates that OEMs encode model and engine information into slots 4 through 8 of the VIN, there is no similar mandate for transmission type encoding. Even now, more than 5% of vehicles made for current model years are available with standard and manual options, and the transmission data is not recorded in the VIN. However, the majority of vehicles are only available with automatic transmissions.

In order to improve the match rate of decoded transmissions in your inventory or data feed, this article addresses four frequently asked topics about VIN decoding transmission data and offers potential answers.

Why can’t I determine the transmission type for my VIN?

Positions 48 of the VIN are encoded with a variety of useful vehicle information, including the engine, body type, drive type (RWD vs. AWD, etc.), restraint system, and GVWR, as was covered in Part II of our VIN Decoding 101 Guide. This VIN part is also used by some OEMs to record transmission data. Unfortunately, the NHTSA VIN standard does not call for this. VIN alone will not be sufficient to identify the vehicle’s transmission type because some OEMs continue to utilize the same 10-digit VIN sequences for automatic and manual transmission vehicles.

The gearbox match rates for total loss claims, salvage/scrap, auctions, and used car sales are significantly impacted by this, which is especially problematic for older vehicle inventory.

How often will I be able to determine transmission using VIN alone?

Your odds of being able to determine transmission from the VIN alone are substantially higher for recent model years than for older vehicles due to the gradual decrease in manual transmission options for new cars (see our post on the Demise of the Manual Transmission). The fraction of VIN patterns over time that refer to a single transmission is displayed in the table below. Note that depending on the makeup and age of your inventory, percentages for your stock may vary from the figures below.

Which makes are particularly problematic?

The VIN is typically sufficient information to determine transmission for many makes. However, for the following brands in the most recent five model years, you should anticipate it to be particularly challenging to determine transmission from VIN alone:

It is particularly challenging to determine transmission from the VIN pattern alone for:

  • Mini
  • Fiat
  • Jeep
  • Porsche
  • Ram
  • BMW

How can I improve my transmission match rate?

There are two ways to increase your transmission match rate if you want to go beyond what the VIN can provide. Utilizing 17-digit VIN-specific vehicle build information obtained from your data provider is your first choice. In addition to the VIN kept with your vehicle inventory, you could also be able to identify the installed transmission using additional information.

To provide factory OEM build data, which details the precise trim, style, transmission, interior and exterior color, and factory optional equipment put on the vehicle when it rolled off the assembly line, data providers like DataOne have partnered with OEMs. This gives you access to the vehicle’s internal configuration record maintained by the OEM. While not all manufacturers have made this information available, some data providers have created their own 17-digit VIN-specific VIN Decoding logic that may be able to detect the installed transmission even if it isn’t stored in the VIN pattern.

You might discover that, in addition to VIN, you have previously gathered (or obtained from an inventory data feed) additional datapoints. These could be a trim name, manufacturer model number, package code, transmission code, or even just a straightforward transmission type (“M, “A, “MT, “AT, etc). Any of these fields might be the final piece needed to correctly and completely identify installed transmissions. Additionally, rather than attempting to decode the right meaning yourself, if you use DataOne’s VIN decoding service, you may send all these additional datapoints to our API and let us interpret them.

Transmission type is the most useful (and obvious) datapoint you can try to gather and use along with VIN when it comes to deciphering transmission details. Once you have the VIN and the transmission type, you should be able to rely on your data source to inform you whether a car with the VIN XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX has a 5-speed manual transmission, a 6-speed manual transmission, etc. There are a few VIN patterns that signify automobiles that can be equipped with multiple automatic transmission or multiple manual gearbox types, however this is uncommon. The next two most useful datapoints, if you can’t include transmission type in your decoding process, would be manufacturer model number and trim level (typically accessible through inventory feeds or DMS data for new vehicles) (for example, L, LE, or XLE). For vehicles from the early 2000s, taking into account these two fields will enhance your match percentage by roughly 56 percentage points, and by a few percentage points for more current model years.

The purpose of DataOne’s VIN Decoder API is to provide industry-leading VIN decoding accuracy and precision by utilizing OEM factory build data and proprietary 17-digit advanced VIN decoding logic developed at DataOne. Additionally, DataOne’s APIs are made to accept a wide range of data as input, including VIN, OEM codes, trim, and any other vehicle descriptors like “manual” or “automatic” that you may have access to. These inputs are then used to return a single transmission, style, and color whenever possible for use cases that do not justify the cost of OEM build data licensing. This lessens the need for human inventory verification on your part and improves the accuracy of your data and vehicle listings as well as their perceived worth to potential buyers.