Most people would prefer to purchase a used vehicle rather than a new one, because it makes economic sense. After all, the minute you drive a new vehicle out of the showroom, it depreciates by as much as 30%, and that is money that you are never going back. And there is nothing wrong with a used vehicle, so long as it was properly looked after.
Indeed, the issue is not how to find a vehicle that is suitable for you. You just need to know what it is you’re looking for, and it is likely that you will find something that suits your personality, your lifestyle, and, most of all, your budget as well. The problem is, however, that you need to actually know what car you are buying. And that is where a VIN lookup comes in. A VIN is a Vehicle Identification Number and essentially tells you everything you need to know about a car, and particularly about the things that you cannot see by simply looking at a car or even speaking to the salesman.
What Is a VIN?
The VIN of a vehicle is like its DNA, or its fingerprint. It is made up of a series of numbers and letters, and this tells you what the make and model of the car is, where it was manufactured, and when. Thanks to this information, you can find out a wealth of details about the vehicles that the dealer may not want to tell you, or may not even know. If you buy a used car, you will be provided with a range of paperwork about it, but how do you know some of those details haven’t been altered here and there? The goal of a seller is to keep the value of their car as high as possible, so they may omit a few crucial details. Think of it as a resume: everybody lies on one of those. A VIN number, by contrast, is the confirmation that those details are actually correct.
What makes a VIN check even more important when you want to buy a used vehicle is because it tells you whether or not the car is in good condition, and whether the car you are buying is stolen or not. A VIN is unique, with every vehicle having just a single, unique number. If a car has been stolen and has been ‘stripped’, whereby different parts have been switched over for instance, you will find out about this thanks to the VIN number, because it won’t correspond to what you actually see in front of you.
Not just that, if a vehicle has been listed as being a ‘Lemon’, this will be registered against its VIN. Furthermore, if it has been in any accidents or has had other serious repairs done to it, this will also be listed against the VIN. Essentially, what a check enables you to do is make sure that the information you receive about a vehicle is correct.