Since its founding in the 1930s, Japan's Toyota Motor Corporation has produced a variety of motor vehicle engines for trucks and cars in its own line and for other manufacturers.
Not surprisingly, the prolific Toyota Motor Corporation uses one of the most efficient engine identification systems among automobile manufacturers. The company's method incorporates each vehicle's vehicle identification number, or VIN, making it nearly impossible to purchase the wrong engine for a given model.
Your Toyota VIN is a combination of 17 numbers and letters. You can find it in the following places: on your insurance card; on your vehicle registration; on the "VIN plate" located on the lower dashboard closest to the closest to the windshield on the driver's side; and printed on the certificate label located on the driver's side door jamb.
In looking at the VIN, note the first numeric characters, which specify the engine block's generation. The next one or two letters specify the engine family. The suffix, which is separated by a dash, specifies the features of the engine. For example, "C" indicates "emissions control system" while "E" indicates "electronic fuel injection."
