VIN function

[Craig]

I'm wondering if anyone out there has developed a function or come across any
software that calculates the results of a vehicle's VIN number.

As you may know, each number/letter in a car's 17-digit VIN number
represents something (ie, the 1st character identifies the country where the
vehicle was manufactured; the 2nd identifies the manufacturer - Ford, GM,
etc.; 3rd identifies the type of vehicle - Mustang, Aerostar, etc.).

I know there are many websites out there that allow you to type in a VIN and
receive this information. I'm working on a class action case that involves
thousands of vehicles, so I'd like to have some kind of function that I can
place in a query and calculate this for me.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks.

 

[RD]

If I understand you, you're looking for something that would parse out all the
info contained in a VIN?

For starters I think you would need a table containing the data for each part of
the VIN. i.e. a Country able, a Manufacturer table, etc.

Here's a little more info:
http://yarchive.net/car/vin.html

Once you had that it wouldn't be very difficult to build something that would do
what you ask.

 

[Craig]

Thanks. Yes, that's what I'm hoping for. I guess I was hoping someone had
either done all the leg work for me (ie., created a database that housed all
the info), or had an idea for a program, etc. out there that might help.

Anyway, not really a programming question, I know, but I've always had great
luck with suggestions in this newsgroup.

Thanks for the link...very helpful.