How to immediately find out the true age of the car

What year was the car you were going to buy made? Usually a simple answer to this question is given by car documents. But fraud is not uncommon, especially with so-called “new imports”. Here are five easy ways to find out your year at a glance.

VIN number

This 17-digit code, which is usually located at the bottom of the windshield and under the hood, is something like a car PIN. It encodes all information about the date and place of production, original equipment, and so on. In addition, this number can be used as a reference to check the history of the car in the unified systems of manufacturers - this will give you information on mileage and repairs, at least in official repair shops. Most importers of individual brands do this for free, and if you're denied, there are plenty of online apps (already paid for) that do the same.

VIN identification appeared in the United States in the 1950s, but since 1981 it has become international.

How to read the VIN number

However, you do not need to check the databases to find out the year and place of manufacture by VIN.

The first three characters in it indicate the manufacturer, the first - the country. Numbers from 1 to 9 designate the countries of North and South America and Oceania (USA - 1, 4 or 5). The letters A to H are for African countries, J to R for Asian countries (J for Japan), and S to Z for Europe (Germany for W).

However, the most important for our purposes is the tenth character in the VIN - it indicates the year of manufacture. 1980, the first with the new standard, is marked with the letter A, 1981 with the letter B, and so on. In 2000, we came up with the letter Y, and then the years between 2001 and 2009 are numbered from 1 to 9. In 2010, we will return to the alphabet - this year is indicated by the letter A, 2011 is B, 2019 is K and 2020 is L .

The letters I, O and Q are not used in VIN numbers due to the risk of confusion with other characters.

Windows

According to the regulations, their year of release is also indicated by the manufacturer: at the bottom of the usual code there is a series of dots, dashes and one or two digits indicating the month and year of release. Of course, this is not a completely reliable way to find out the year of manufacture of the car itself. It happens that in cars assembled, for example, at the beginning of 2011, windows of 2010 are installed. And, of course, it happens that the windows are replaced. But such a discrepancy between the age of the windows and the car could mean a more serious accident in the past. Then it is recommended to check history by VIN-code.

Belts

The date of manufacture in accordance with safety requirements is always indicated on the label of the seat belt. It is written not in complex codes, but as a regular date - it only starts with a year and ends with a day. Belts are something that is very rarely replaced in a car.

Shock absorbers

They should also have the date of manufacture stamped on the metal. Some manufacturers state this directly, others express it with something like a fraction: the numerator in it is the next day of the year in which the component was produced, and the denominator is the year itself.

Under the hood

Many parts in the engine compartment have a date of manufacture. Do not rely on them to determine the age of a car, as they change frequently. But the discrepancy between the dates will give you information about what kind of repair the car was subjected to.