Identify Manufacturing Date Of A Car In India In Simple Steps

One of the biggest problems that second-hand car buyers face is verifying the actual age of the car and checking it against what the dealer is claiming it to be. In fact, there have even been instances of previous-year models of brand-new cars being passed off as new models by certified dealers. That's why it's important that you know how to check a car's age yourself. It's a simple process that involves finding and decoding the car's VIN (Vehicle Identification Number). Here's how you can do it.

Where to find a car's VIN?

This number usually has over 20 digits and characters combined. Each manufacturer has a different way of generating this number and hence there's a different method for decoding all of them. To find the VIN, you need to open the hood of the car and check for such a number near the engine bay. If you don't find it there, you can look for it near the passenger compartment.

How to decode the VIN?

In any car's VIN, the month and year of manufacturing are denoted by the English alphabet. For instance, the letter ‘A' is used for the year 2010 while ‘Y' is used for 2030. Letters ‘I', ‘O' and ‘Q' are not used in VIN. Have a look at the tables below to better understand this.

Now that you know this part, you must know that different car manufacturers place these alphabets at different positions in the VIN. So, what might be true for a Tata car won't be true for a Skoda. You must hence know the method of your car's manufacturer's VIN coding to decode it. Here's how some popular car manufacturers hide the manufacturing date in the VIN.

Hyundai: The 10th letter in the VIN is used to show the manufacturing year while the 19th letter is used to show the month.

Mahindra: The 10th letter is used to code the year, while the 12th letter is used for the month.

Maruti Suzuki: The company's VIN uses the 10th letter to show the manufacturing year and the 11th letter to tell the month.

Tata: Cars made by Tata use the 10th alphabet to code the manufacturing year and the 12th letter to represent the month.

MG Motor: This company places the year at the 10th position and the month at the 19th.

Skoda: Again, the year is at 10th place, while the month is at the 6th.

It's as simple as that. Once you have a car's VIN, you can easily decode it to find out the vehicle's manufacturing month and year.