Most people aren’t aware that they can use their vehicle identification number (VIN) to save money on a variety of car-related expenses. This ranges from finding your stolen vehicle to checking insurance rates to find the best prices for your car.
We’ll cover how to do a VIN check to find insurance rates. We’ll also cover some of the things that are included in a VIN number that make it unique and help car owners identify their vehicle. Each part of the VIN tells something about the car, and we’ll break it down here.
What’s in a VIN Number?
The VIN number is 17 digits, and they each mean something about the car. The first digit is the country the vehicle was made in. The next digit is the company that made the vehicle. The third is your vehicle type, such as a sedan or a truck.
The fourth through the ninth numbers is the vehicle description, and the rest of the digits tell things like the plant the car was produced on and the production number of the vehicle. It’s difficult to remember what all these items mean, and you don’t have to. If you want a few numbers memorized, you can remember that Chevrolet is part of General Motors.
Remembering that Chevrolet is part of General Motors means that the second digit in the VIN will be G. So if you own a classic car like the 1964 Chevy C10, there will be a G in the VIN for the second digit.
As long as you have the entire number written down in a location you can keep close and look at for reference, you don’t need to know what all the digits mean. VINs don’t account for customizations and modifications to a vehicle, so they are not comprehensive.
VINs Save You Money With Insurance
VINs are very convenient for finding rates on car insurance. If you give an insurance company the VIN number of the car you are thinking about insuring, they can give you some estimates for what it will cost to insure the car.
Finding out an estimated cost for insurance makes it easier to look ahead and save money before buying a car. If you buy the car and then look for insurance, you could get caught driving while uninsured.
VINs Help Find Your Car
VINs will also save you time and money with the police when they are looking for a stolen car. If you can give them a VIN for your vehicle, they will know all the basic information about the car.
The more the police know, the higher the chance of finding the vehicle. If police find your vehicle, you don’t have to worry about your insurance company only giving you a set amount of money for a replacement.
Hopefully, you can see that VINs are a great way to find out basic information about your car. This will let you communicate with insurance companies, police, and auto shops about your vehicle. The more you know, the easier things go when it comes to cars.
Shawn Laib writes and researches for the car insurance comparison site, CheapCarInsuranceQuotes.com. He wants to help people understand different and forgotten ways to save money on their cars.
