A VIN check can save you thousands.
Skip the headache. Run a free 30 second VIN lookup.
VIN check FAQs
Is this VIN check really free?
Yes. No account, no sign-up, no payment and no daily limit. Check as many vehicles as you like, as often as you like.
Does it tell me whether a car is salvage, flooded or stolen?
No, and this is the most important thing on the page. It decodes what the manufacturer built against the number. It carries no insurance write-off, salvage, flood or theft records at all. That matters most for tokunbo: a great many cars imported from America were declared a total loss there, rebuilt and re-titled, and the VIN alone will never show it. Ask us and we will run a paid history report on any vehicle before you pay for it.
Does a clean result guarantee the car is safe to buy?
It does not. A valid result means the number itself is genuine and matches a real vehicle. It says nothing about the condition of the car in front of you, its true mileage, whether it has been crashed and repaired, or whether it is stolen. Only an inspection and a full history report answer those.
What is the difference between this and a full vehicle history report?
This is a free decoder. It verifies the number and returns the factory specification: make, model, year, engine, drive and assembly plant. A full history report is a paid product that pulls title records, auction listings, insurance write-offs and service history from a much wider range of sources. We run one on every vehicle we sell before it is listed.
Why does it say my VIN is well formed rather than valid?
The ninth character is a checksum, but only vehicles built for the North American market are required to carry a meaningful one. Plenty of genuine Japanese and European cars do not, so there is no arithmetic to check them against. It is not a sign that anything is wrong.
What should I do if a sale looks fraudulent?
Stop before any money changes hands. Walk away from any seller who will not let you read the VIN off the car and check it against the papers, and be wary when the number on the windscreen, the door frame and the documents do not all agree. Send us the VIN and we will check it for you, whether or not you are buying from us.