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

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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

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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

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