How To Decode Your Used Toyota Car’s VIN

Are you in the market to purchase a used car?

Have you chosen a car from the Toyota brand, and are now finding it hard to VIN look-up? Don’t worry!!

Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) helps in bringing the surety in your purchase. It helps in providing the details related to the year, make, model, trim package, engine size and transmission type of any vehicle.

The first thing you need to have to check the specifications of your selected used car is VIN. VIN is a unique identification number for your car. Your Toyota’s VIN is of 17 digits, and it is printed in different locations of your car.

You can find the VIN either

1. On a sticker or a metal tag which is located on your dashboard. You should be able to see the VIN through the windshield on the driver’s side, way down at the bottom
2. On a sticker inside the driver’s door jamb
3. On a sticker under the hood (actually stuck to the underside of the hood)
4. Some other place where you can look for your vehicle identification number is vehicle’s window glass
5. It can also be seen under the spare tire. Engine block or in the metal above the vehicle’s rear wheel, VIN is stamped on to it, at driver’s side

Remember, the insurance card and/or vehicle registration document will also have the Vehicle Identification Number.  

VIN Decoder

If you look at the VIN, first three digits in your vehicle identification number correspond to the make, model and manufacturer. Whereas, the fourth digit represents the safety features on the vehicles.

From the digit 5 to 8 you will find a vehicle’s trim level or series, engine, and transmission.

Ninth digit is also called as “Check Digit”. It is designed to verify the authenticity of the VIN and it’s determined using a mathematical formula which involves other numbers in the VIN.

10th digit represents the year when your particular Toyota model was introduced. The eleventh number helps in determining which factory assembled the vehicle.

The last six digits used in any Toyota vehicle are used to identify the vehicle internally.

Usually these digits are assumed to indicate when a vehicle was produced, however, this is not the case always.

For the 10th digit, these are the model years corresponding to the year of production:

A – 1980 OR 2010

B – 1981 OR 2011

C – 1982 OR 2012

D – 1983 OR 2013

E – 1984 OR 2014

F – 1985 OR 2015

G – 1986

H – 1987

I – Doesn’t exist. You’re looking at the number one.

J – 1988

K – 1989

L – 1990

M – 1991

N – 1992

O – Doesn’t exist. Zero or O letter are never used as the 10th digit.

P – 1993

Q – Doesn’t exist.

R – 1994

S – 1995

T – 1996

U – As letter U can be confused with “V” so, it doesn’t exist.

V – 1997

W – 1998

X – 1999

Y – 2000

1 – 2001

2 – 2002

3 – 2003

4 – 2004

5 – 2005

6 – 2006

7 – 2007

8 – 2008

9 – 2009

A – See beginning of the list