Using Your Dealer Management System/Information used for VIN-decoding

Modern VIN-decoders tell more than can be provided by a specific VIN. This makes "VIN-decoding" as a term slightly confusing, in reality they do much more. They seek to narrow down the vehicle to a specific style.

In United States and Canada, VIN Data (with style information) is predominantly provided by Chrome, Polk, VINquery.com, Data One Software, ESP Data, RyanTech and JATO Dynamics.

Fields Utilized edit

To properly VIN-decode a vehicle to a single style numerous fields of information are utilized.[1] Some of these fields include:

  1. VIN
  2. Body
  3. Trim
  4. Wheel Base
  5. Option Codes
  6. Manufacturer Model Number
  7. Manufacturer Color Codes / Exterior Color
  8. Transmission

A VIN can often only tell with accuracy the big three: year, make (manufacturer), and model. A proper implementation of VIN-decoder will use as much information as is provided to get down the vehicle to the most exact telling style. Which will tell you things such as: color, standard features, available trims, wheel base, bed size, amongst a whole slew of other useful things.

Footnotes edit

^ This might not be true for every vendor of style information, the information provided applys specifically to the Chrome dataset.