Executive Summary
The Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) is a unique serial number that identifies every automobile manufactured from 1981 on to today. Prior to 1981, there was no accepted standard for these numbers, so different manufacturers used different formats. Since 1981, VINs consist of 17 characters which do not include the letters I (i), O (o), or Q (q) (to avoid confusion with numerals 1 and 0).The VIN serves as a serial number that contains information about the vehicle manufacturer, where the vehicle was manufactured, the manufacture year, and etc.
Although there are several websites that allow you to decode a VIN, none of the websites allow you to enter a list of VINs and have that list decoded. Dr. Snow of the Supply Chain department needed to decode over 250,000 VINs and it would take him a very long time to enter each one into a website, have it decode the VIN, copy the information, then sort it.
Since the information to write a VIN decoder is not easily available I wrote a program that reads a text file that contains multiple VINs, validates the VINs and uses a website (http://www.decodethis.com/) to decode the VIN. Once the VIN is decoded this information is downloaded and summarized. Once the list of VINs has been decoded the user can use a form to build a custom list of VINs and decoded information given the make, model, year, trim level, manufacture location, body style, engine type, and drive line.
http://files.gove.net/shares/files/10f/aec57/Online_VIN_Decoder.pdf
http://files.gove.net/shares/files/10f/aec57/Online_VIN_Decoder.xlsm
http://files.gove.net/shares/files/10f/aec57/Online_VIN_Decoder_-_Small_List_of_VINs.txt
http://files.gove.net/shares/files/10f/aec57/Online_VIN_Decoder_-_Medium_List_of_VINs.txt
This is pretty awesome and could potentially save me hundreds of hours. I've gotten as far as validating the VINs, but when I go to Decode them I run into a problem. If I'm able to figure out what the problem is and fix it, then I'm sending presents to Dr. Allen and the student behind this project, and sending my niece to Brigham Young for college. Seriously.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately I have no idea what I'm doing. When I click on the Decode button a Microsoft Visual Basic message pops up that says, "Run-time error: '9':
Subscript out of range," and gives me the option to click End or Debug. When I click Debug, another page pops up that has a lot of code looking stuff on it. On that page there is a yellow arrow pointing to a highlighted line in the code looking stuff. The highlighted text says, "Sheets("vin data").visible = True." I don't know what to do from here... If anyone here knows what to do I would really appreciate the help. Email me at whitneycollins@force911.com, or call 678.919.7911
I LOVE THIS BLOG!
Hi, thanks for the summary. BTW, here's a free web service VIN decoder. It provides VIN decoder API for developers.
ReplyDeleteThis explains more about a certain vin decoder and what information are included in a car vin lookup report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4EYMXAFReI
ReplyDeleteThanks but I got it for only $3. Cheap Carfax vin decoder
ReplyDeleteHello - I tried to access the links above, but they did not open. Does someone have this information? Thank you - John
ReplyDeleteNowadays, finding a good site for decoding vin numbers is not so easy, since now there are a huge number of similar sites and they practically do not differ from each other. This is the same as looking for a needle in a haystack. I advise you to check this dealer vin check https://vininspect.com/
ReplyDeleteI have been using this service for quite some time now and I am very pleased with how they do their job.
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ReplyDeleteWe provide you with the free car accident report only after making sure it is reliable and 100% right. trailer vin number search
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