How To Check Any Years Of Car Before Buying

Just like humans or anything made by humans, cars have their ages. Have you ever considered; how old your car is? Simply put, the age of a car is the number of years it has existed from the time it was manufactured. Note that the year of manufacture of a car is different from the registration year. For instance, a Toyota Highlander manufactured in November 2016 in Japan might get bought and registered in Nigeria by February 2017. Though, it looks like they are four months apart; the year of manufacture is 2016 while the year of registration is 2017.

It’s important to know the age of your car before buying it. Here are a few reasons why;

Why You Should Know The Age Of Your Vehicle

1. If you are into the car importation business, knowing the age of a car will let you stay within the law requirements for cars accepted into a country. For instance, in Nigeria cars older than 15 years are not acceptable.
2. Knowing the age of a car will also let you know if you can easily find the spare parts of the car within your area or country. For instance, it would be difficult to get the spare part of a 1980 model of car in this 21st century.
3. Knowing the age of a car before buying will help you pay reasonably for a car. For instance, a 2010 Honda Civic won’t be as expensive as a 2020 Honda Civic model.

How To Determine The Age Of Any Car

A simple trick to determine the age of a car is to check out for the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) of the car. The Vehicle Identification Number is a unique code, usually 17 characters long, including figures and alphabets that is used to identify a motor vehicle. Just like fingerprints, no two vehicles have the same Vehicle Identification Number. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration made it a requirement that all road vehicles should have a VIN, beginning in 1981. Thus, it is unlikely that your car does not have a VIN. Every car has a VIN, thus, it is very easy to determine the age of any car using its VIN.

Follow these steps to determine the age of your car using your car’s VIN:

Step One: Locate The Vin

The VIN of a car can be located at different places in a car. In most vehicles, the VIN is usually found on the dashboard towards the driver’s side of the car. The easiest way to see this is to look from outside towards the corner of the dashboard where it meets the driver’s seat.

The second common place where you can find your VIN is at the door post on the driver’s side doors, where it latches when closed.

Other places where you can find the VIN number include Insurance card/Insurance policy or Vehicle title and registration.

Step Two: Observe The Vin And Identify The 10th Character

A car’s VIN is usually 17 characters long. Check out how a typical Vehicle Identification Number looks like:

4Y1SL65848Z411439

Observing this VIN, the 10th character which is ‘8’ in this case, decides the model year of a car. The model year of a car is when it is manufactured.

Step Three: Decoding The 10th Character Of The Vin

The entire string of characters in a VIN decodes for something. However, since this article is about determining the age of a car, I will be focusing on the 10th character which encodes the model year of the car.

VIN became a general law every car must have in 1981. The 10th character can be an alphabet or a figure, and it is a universal code used by car manufacturers to indicate the year of manufacture.

Below is a list showing the codes and model year of car manufacturer they indicate;

Code	Model Year	Code	Model Year
A	1980	1	2001
B	1981	2	2002
C	1982	3	2003
D	1983	4	2004
E	1984	5	2005
F	1985	6	2006
G	1986	7	2007
H	1987	8	2008
J	1988	9	2009
K	1989	A	2010
L	1990	B	2011
M	1991	C	2012
N	1992	D	2013
P	1993	E	2014
R	1994	F	2015
S	1995	G	2016
T	1996	H	2017
V	1997	J	2018
W	1998	K	2019
X	1999	M	2020
Z	2000	N	2021

Note that the letters I, O, Q, U or Z, are not included. This is because according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration these letters are not included within the VIN.

Step Four: Calculate The Age Of Your Vehicle

You can easily correlate the alphabet or figure you find on your vehicle’s VIN to the model year in the list above. In the 21st century, if the 10th character on your car is an ‘A’; it’s very unlikely that the model year is 1980. This is because 1980 cars are very old and you won’t likely find them available in 2021. Thus, if you find an ‘A’ as the 10th character, you can decode it as 2010. The same applies for B, C, D, E, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, and N as they should interpret 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 respectively.

To calculate the age of your car, simply subtract it from the current year.

Using our example above, the 10th character is 8 which decodes for 2008.

Age of the vehicle= 2021-2008= 13.

This means the car is 13 years old.

CONCLUSION

Determining the age of any vehicle is simple. All you need to know is to identify the VIN and correctly decode the 10th character. You can always refer to this article on carmart.ng to know the age of any vehicle you desire before buying it.