If you’re planning to buy a vehicle in Australia or import a vehicle for the first time, you might have come across the term vehicle identification number or VIN.
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If you’re wondering what the VIN is, the following information will interest you.
What is VIN?
VIN or Vehicle Identification Number is a unique number used in the automobile industry to recognise individual vehicles.
Some things you should note are:
- VIN follows two international standards:
- International Standards Organisation (currently ISO 3779 2009)
- US Standard FMVSS 115
- A VIN always contains 17 characters
- Every character in the VIN has a meaning regarding the make, model, manufacturing year and details of the vehicle
- A VIN can be made only of the characters: 0 to 9 and A to Z (all in uppercase) except I, O and Q. This is for eliminating confusion regarding similar-looking numerals and letters
- The first 3 characters of the VIN constitute the World Manufacturer Identifier i.e. WMI. All the high-volume manufacturers in the world are assigned their own WMI.
- If the 3rd character of the WMI is a 9, it indicates a low volume manufacturer with a 12th to 14th position in the VIN denoting the low volume ID.
All this information can be gained by decoding VINs for the registration of the vehicle.
NEVDIS
The NEVDIS or National Exchange of Vehicle and Driver Information System maintains a database that registers all vehicles’ VIN throughout the country.
A main task of the NEVDIS is to decipher and upload new VINS as automobiles are made or imported into Australia so that the automobile can be registered with the corresponding State or Territory.
When you hire a service for reliable import American cars to Australia with Import Direct Car Sales, the VIN that is noted on your Vehicle Import Approval is sent to the NEVDIS Administration Unit (NAU) to enable them to validate, decipher and upload it for registration purpose.
You should remember that the NEVDIS records only VINs of automobiles manufactured on or after 1st January 1989.
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What about Automobiles without a 17-character VIN?
If you’re planning to import an automobile that you want to register for on-road use and it was manufactured after 1st January 1989, it should have a 17-character VIN for registration purpose.
However, some automobiles don’t have a 17-character VIN. This problem arises mostly in case of Japanese automobiles which use the chassis number as the recognising serial number.
The chassis number is less than 17 characters. Even Chinese trailer don’t have a 17-character VIN number because of the local jurisdictional problems.
In such scenarios, a ‘surrogate’ VIN should be produced and issued for that specific automobile for its registration purpose.
This comprises of expanding the characters in the chassis number and including a special WMI in the beginning.
Importation of Less than 500 Vehicles per Year
If you’re importing less than 500 automobiles (including an average individual importing their personal automobile on a one-off basis) every year that were produced on or after 1st January 1989 and it/they don’t have a 17-character VIN, the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development will allot a VIN or VINs using the specific WMI of the Department.
After knowing all this information, make use of the shipping cost calculator to find the cost of importation, check whether your car has VIN or not and do the needful to import your dream car.
