HOW TO QUERY A VEHICLE BY ITS VIN OR SERIES?
In this post, discover how to check the history of a vehicle through its vehicle identification number or NIV, which will allow you to avoid falling for scams in a sale.
Vehicle query by VIN: Why should I check it?
Checking the history of a vehicle by its VIN is an alternative that you have when you do not know the license plate of the car or motorcycle and you need to review the situation of the unit, either because you want to buy or sell it or simply to catch up on your arrears. .
This can give you an advantage, especially if you are thinking of buying a used car, since the official sources where you can consult store a large amount of key data at the time of making this decision, such as your tax, legal, mechanical situation, and much more.
But how to know the debt and other history of a vehicle, but you do not have the plates? In this post, you will learn about two ways to make this vehicle query by VIN and we will compare the data offered by each one so that you have two alternatives that will help you evaluate your purchase well. HOW TO QUERY A VEHICLE BY ITS VIN OR SERIES?
What risks exist by not checking the vehicle data?
Not knowing the status of your car or any used vehicle you want to buy is risky because, even if it looks good on the outside, the unit can hide a past that is hard to imagine if you don’t know the current or previous owners.
In fact, this is one of the most common mistakes among novice used car buyers: taking the words of the person selling it is fine, but you also have to back that up with factual data obtained from official sources, otherwise Otherwise you could run one of the following typical dangers of buying and selling :
- Not being able to specify the change of owner, in the event that the car has limitations on ownership, for example.
- You will have to take care of traffic fines that are pending payment, otherwise, you will have problems renewing the documents and other vehicle procedures.
- The mileage could be skewed, a bad practice that is more common than you think.
- The car could have been reported for theft, in which case you would have problems with the law and could lose your purchase completely.
- Cloned cars are another risk that is related to car theft; in this case, the vehicle identification numbers are manipulated to hide that they have been stolen, making it more difficult to know their situation.
- The vehicle may have been declared a total loss, with which its value falls drastically and, eventually, you will not be able to use it if it is in poor condition.
How to query a vehicle by its VIN?
When we talk about VIN, we talk about the vehicle identification number ( vehicle identification number ), a sequence of letters and digits in a unique combination that makes it possible to differentiate a unit from any other in the world, according to the ISO 3833 standard. , which applies to all types of vehicles, including motorcycles and trailers.
The VIN is made up of 17 alphanumeric characters that provide information about the origin of the vehicle and some of its general characteristics. If you need to review it, you can find it at one of the following points :
- In the lower-left corner of the windshield.
- On the inside of the driver’s door frame.
- In the chassis area, above the front wheel.
- Under the hood, on the front face of the engine, or on the rear frame.
If you do not have the possibility to see the vehicle in person, this number should appear on each of your official documents. Talk to the seller and request, at least, to know one of the numbers that allow you to check the real condition of the unit.
Once you know the VIN, you have the option of checking the vehicle in REPUVE or with the Autofact Report, two paths that offer different amounts of information and that we describe in detail below.
Vehicle query by VIN in REPUVE
To know the key history of a vehicle, you do not need to leave home or call any institution, because everything is on the Internet.
In fact, the country’s Public Vehicle Registry has a Citizen Consultation option on its website and also on its mobile application, available for mobile phones with iOS and Android operating
The identification number is made up of 17 characters (eight of them are the frame number), both numbers and letters, which do not include I, O, Q, or Ñ to avoid confusion. Within this achievement, the standardized distribution is distributed as follows around the same three elements:
- WMI: manufacturer’s identification represented by the first three digits where the first is the country of the manufacturing company based on the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
- VDS (vehicle description section): six characters that collect information about the car in reference to the type of engine, chassis, fuel, and other purely technical factors.
- VIS (vehicle identification section): composed of eight characters; is the chassis number. The combination provides information about the year the car was built, at which factory, and on which production line.
The car identification number is like the vehicle’s DNA chain, which is why it is always reflected in the documentation (both the registration certificate and technical sheet). The manipulation of the VIN (or of the identification documents) always reveals theft or fraud operations and implies the violation of article 392 of the Penal Code and implies prison sentences of six months to three years and a fine of six to 12 months:
- The individual who commits in a public, official or commercial document, altering a document in any of its elements or essential requirements or simulating a document in whole or in part, in a way that misleads as to its authenticity, will be punished with the penalties imprisonment from six months to three years and a fine from six to twelve months.
- The same penalties will be imposed on those who, without having participated in the forgery, traffic in any way with a false identity document. A prison sentence of six months to one year and a fine of three to six months will be imposed on anyone who knowingly uses a false identity document. NSAIDs