Each vehicle built from 1981 onward has a unique Vehicle Identification Number that when decoded, describes the vehicle in terms of manufacturer, place of manufacture, make and model, and production number. Vehicles built before 1981 can have 11 to 17 characters in their VIN. All Toyotas will share some VIN digits, but none are identical.
Find the VIN on the vehicle. Looking for the VIN stamped on the vehicle is more accurate than taking the VIN from the registration documents as there is a small chance the VINs may not match in cases of fraud. The VIN can be found at the front of the engine block, near the windscreen washer reservoir, at the driver's side doorpost, inside the driver's doorjamb, under the spare tire or at a rear wheel well.
Look at the first character of the VIN. This refers to the country of manufacture. For the U.S., this character will be a 1, a 4 or a 5, and for Japan, this will be a J.
Ensure the second character is a T, for Toyota. If the second character is not a T, you may have mistaken another vehicle coding system present on the vehicle for a VIN, or your vehicle is not a Toyota.
Treat the next five characters as a section. This section designates the vehicle details such as series, body type, engine, restraint and line, but the characters may not be in this order.
Treat the next character in isolation. This character will be a number from zero to nine or an X. This is a check digit that is used to prevent vehicle fraud. It is calculated using numerical values from the other characters in the VIN.
Find out the year the vehicle was manufactured by looking at the tenth character of the VIN. This can be a letter or a number. The sequence begins with an A for the 1980 year and ends on a Y for the year 2000. For 2001, the character is a 1 onwards, until 2010, when the alphabet begins again with an A. The letters I, Q and O are not used in VINs as they are easily mistaken for other characters.
Find out which plant the vehicle was built in by looking at the character in position 11. For example, C stands for the Ontario, Canada plant, U stands for Georgetown, Kentucky and Z stands for Fremont, California.
Treat the final characters as a section. These six characters represent the production sequence of the vehicle as it was made in the plant. This section will be unique to this particular vehicle.
Input the VIN into an online decoder such as Motoverse to get a detailed result of what all the characters mean for your particular Toyota.
