At 10:41 PM 4/16/98 -0500, you wrote:
>T & J wrote:
> Hate to tell you this- but NO. The vehicle VIN # is used for the plants
> where motor, body, and in what country your vehicles were built in-either
> Canada or USA. It also tells of course the vehicle serial # and what
> day,week and year. This of course uses the VIN#'s in a sequense by using
> certain numbers and letters that have to be interperted. If you really want
> to know the options and what was installed on the vehicle in the building
> process, you have to find that hidden BUILD SHEET from the company that's in
> your vehicle--your guess is as good as mine where it is, but usually they're
> in the springs of the seats or under the carpet, or any other place that's
> protected from weather,like behind some plastic panels.
[...]
>I beg to differ. When I first got my truck, I took it back to the dealer for a
>small oil leak. I know about everybody there, my family has been dealing with
>this dealership for ever, and one of the guys asked my for my VIN. I gave it to
>him, and he returned with a gift: a print out of about two pages of every
>option/fact about my truck I could ever want, from gears, to gas tank, to color,
>to engine, to interior color...everything, just off the VIN. Dealers can do
>that. If it's common practice for every one, I don't know, but it's possible,
>and took him about 30 seconds.
You're both right. :-)
The VIN itself actually only gives build info; this info is actually encoded
right into the VIN. Stuff like the interior color, gas tank, gears, etc. are
not in the VIN, there's simply not enough room. :-) However, the VIN is a
unique identifer, and would make a great primary key in some sort of nationwide
database that Dodge dealers could tap into. When the truck was ordered or built,
it probably goes into the database, and it would be simple to tap into it using
the VIN to dig that info out again.
Does anyone know if this database is national, or is Robert just lucky
enough to have a dealer that saves this info in its own database for the
vehicles it sells?
-Jon-
.--- stei0302@cs.fredonia.edu -- http://www.cs.fredonia.edu/~stei0302/ ---.
| DoD# 1038, EAA# 518210, NMA# 117376, USUA# A46209, KotWitDoDFAQ, RP-SEL |
| '96 Dodge Dakota v8 SLT Club Cab, '96 Kolb FireFly 447 (#FF019) |
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I do not speak for the SUNY College at Fredonia; any opinions are my own.
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