Auto Manufacturers Running Out Of Unique IDs

wakebrdr writes "Y2K all over again? A story in today's Detroit News explains how the vehicle ID numbering system (VIN) will soon run out of unique numbers. According to the article, a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers says, 'Longer codes would require a major overhaul of computer systems that would dwarf the challenges and expenses spawned by the Y2K computer dilemma.' Golly, if it's that serious maybe I should start stocking up on MREs and ammunition in preparation for the day the assembly lines come to a screeching halt."

Comments

Extend the character set?

[SIGALRM]

The 17-digit codes that identify the origin, make, model and attributes of cars, trucks, buses -- even trailers -- worldwide will be exhausted by the end of the decade.

How about extending the allowable characters in a VIN to include certain ASCII or Unicode symbols? Perhaps make them case-sensitive? That would preserve uniqueness--at least for awhile longer--although it might make the codes harder to verbalize (i.e. to an insurance agent).

Re:Extend the character set?

[LittleGuy]

How about extending the allowable characters in a VIN to include certain ASCII or Unicode symbols? Perhaps make them case-sensitive? That would preserve uniqueness--at least for awhile longer--although it might make the codes harder to verbalize (i.e. to an insurance agent).

I *knew* we'd find a use for Dingbats Font someday!

Re:Extend the character set?

[Kallahar]

reprogramming every device that read's VIN's to accept case sensitivity would be just as hard as adding an extra few digits.

Re:Extend the character set?

[AndroidCat]

vin varchar(17) null,

Might work. I doubt if any of the code tries to manipulate it as a number. (Unless there's a checksum built into it.)

Re:Extend the character set?

[Rob the Bold]

Yes, Mr. Insurance agent, I've got my VIN right here. It's A-1-D-1-squiggle-smiley face-squiggle-1-2-W-musical notes-e with two dots over it-female symbol-B-5-open paren-heart.

Re:Extend the character set?

[Mick Ohrberg]

How about a VINv6?

Re:Extend the character set?

[LaCosaNostradamus]

You must be talking about an escape sequence, which will allow a much larger space of definition, although those definitions will be more fluidly defined due to the very nature of extension.

For instance, a bit can be taken from the existing set, which if 1, indicates "an extended code follows". Then you can add as much as you want, since it's just a freakin' data stream.

Realistically, anything that causes a car company to alter its design, specifically to redesign to accomodate a change in standards, is something they'll complain about. However, if they can leverage the change into something "featuriffic" for the customer -- like being able to design your own watchpoints in the car's codespace and other stuff like that -- then they can merrily design it up and just as merrily make it into a good-paying option.

Re:Extend the character set?

[matguy]

Right, the big thing here is the tooling to punch the codes in to sheet metal or solid metal parts. The tooling is set up to punch certain length codes, just adding another number isn't as simple as just putting another punch on the rack, the whole mechanism would need to be changed in most situations.

Re:Extend the character set?

[drinkypoo]

Unicode symbols take two bytes to represent. Well, in the interesting form of Unicode. Automotive VINs basically come in two flavors. The earlier and simpler flavor is just a short serial number. The form used today is a string of a specific length which may only be made up of alpha characters, and some of those characters actually have specific meaning to others, and many of them have specific meaning to automakers. For instance, by reading the VIN on my (now stolen) '86 IROC I was able to find out that the reason the paint was coming off is that it was painted in Van Nuys, CA. Kind of amusing in a car which was from TX...

The reason this is such a major issue is because you cannot do precisely what you suggest. Most of the states are probably still using heavily antiquated systems to run their licensing operation. This is particularly true in California, whose Department of Motor Vehicles spent some absurd amount of money on what ended up being an already-ancient system to replace their old system. Like most state agencies, they've got shiny new PCs on their desks with flat panel displays, and they're using a terminal emulator (probably 3270) to interface to the systems in which they do all their work.

Given certain apparent truths about bureaucracies, this is probably true to some extent in most of the world. Many systems worldwide would need to upgraded in order to implement a substantial change in VIN encoding, including licensing authorities, car insurance software, law enforcement databases, and others.

I guess there is an up side, though... you COBOL programmers have some more work coming.

Re:Extend the character set?

[tomhudson]

Even 10-year-old VINs are sometimes hard to read - (hello, Toyota Tercel, GM and Ford pickups...)

'Longer codes would require a major overhaul of computer systems that would dwarf the challenges and expenses spawned by the Y2K computer dilemma.'

No it wouldn't. We've been through this before, in the '70s - when each manufacturer made their VIN any way they wanted to - and most were 13 digits, some less.

Computer systems today still handle VINs of less than 17 digits with no problems, provided they've been designed correctly.

So just expand the VIN field by adding a second field of, say, 6 more digits. Vehicles with a VIN of 17 digits or less don't have anything in the second field, those with more than 17 digits do.

The overflow field doesn't even have to be in the same table - just a lookup to see if there's an entry there for the VIN.

Or make the first character of the VIN an arbitrary value - say 'O' (the letter 'o', not the number zero, which means "Made in USA", 2="Made in Canada", 3="Made in Mexico", J="Made in Japan, K="Made in Korea", etc... The letters 'I, O, and Q' are forbidden in the current VIN scheme, as they are too easy to confuse with zero and one. Tell the software that anything beginning with an 'O' should be searched for using the new, longer VIN.

Heck, you could even use a zero, since nobody uses it as the country origin code.

As I said, it's not that big a deal, as we've been there before.

Re:Extend the character set?

[DAldredge]

I did read the article, you did not. If you have you would have learned to following.

Of 1,056 WMI codes available to U.S. manufacturers, 594 remain, according to SAE.

One solution that will be considered when the committee votes on a final recommendation in September or October is to reclaim WMI codes that are going unused in other regions.

More than two dozen countries, from Armenia to Zimbabwe, have up to 288 WMI codes each. All are dormant.

The group may also reclaim WMI codes from U.S. trailer, motorcycle and other manufacturers no longer in business. SAE doesn't have a precise count, but such defunct companies could be the source of enough WMI codes to supplement another 30 years of use, said Steve Ezar, manager of government and industry standardization at SAE.

Another possible solution: the WMI code could be revamped so that the third digit, which now indicates brand, will be freed up to denote different information.

For example, a VIN beginning with 5G1 now describes a Chevrolet built in the United States, while 5G2 identifies a Pontiac.

But in the future, 5G1 could be used to cover all GM products, freeing 5G2 for -- perhaps -- another manufacturer.

Re:Extend the character set?

[Xoder]

Many manufacturers do use barcodes (Code 39, in fact, which only supports the uppercase characters, the numbers, and about six punctuation characters), in addition to the standard metal-punching method. However, they do need to keep that method, for the "rusty VIN" reason stated above, metal is more robust than stickers.

I worked for a barcode reader manufacturer for a while and we got calls from people wanting to use our scanners in just that way, because ours use Bluetooth, and you don't want to deal with wires when you're leaning over a car.

And, in reference to my parenthetical above, not all symbologies support the full ASCII set, in fact, very few do. Barcode Island has some nice low-level specs about specific symbologies.

Re:Extend the character set?

[Short Circuit]

It sure was a problem. But on systems where it mattered, it was fixed. A manufacturing firm's toxic-materials(read: paint) usage tracking computer can't afford to have flawed data points (the fines are tremendous), but most home PCs don't have any such responsibilities or consequences.

The problem here is that nearly all the systems affected matter, from ownership registries to insurance calculations.

Re:Extend the character set?

[EvanED]

This would still result in having to rewrite a lot of software to take the extra field into account. Especially because you could say the exact same argument for Y2K: "So just expand the year field by adding a second field of 2 more digits. Years in the 20th century don't have anything in the second field, those outside do."

That said, who knows how much of a problem this is; Y2K turned out just fine, though it did take quite a bit of work to make it so...

Re:Extend the character set?

[geekoid]

the automotive industry has used dingbats for years!

Re:Extend the character set?

[dfenstrate]

Considering every year they build and rearrange whole assembly lines to crank out thousands of vehicles no one has ever seen before, I'd say retooling is rather a minor issue here.

On the other hand, with the myriad of computers involved in DMV systems, parts management, etc, I can see how the programming part of the matter would be very difficult.

Re:Extend the character set?

[tomhudson]

I specifically stated NOT extending the field, which would mean restructuring each table - rather I stated that an extra field or separate lookup table could be added.

The concept is not new - I stole it from "Database System Concepts, 2nd Ed. (c) 1991, Korth and Silberschatz", though they used the concept of "overflow blocks" for storing values that clash in a hash, and I'm using it for looking up the extended version of a vin (if it exists).

This way, since the original tables are not altered, existing queries that do not deal with the extended vin are not affected, and there's a lot less debugging to do - and a lot fewer areas where bugs can creep in.

The sql statements that do lookups of vins are the only ones that would have to be modified. Not a complex task, since the vin itself (in a properly-normalized database) is not the primary key, but rather gives you back an oid (object id).

Same problem with SINs, which are also not unique in every case.

Re:Extend the character set?

[StarOwl]

The check digit is position nine.

Of course, one way to expand the VIN number set would be to alter the check-digit algorithm to create a second, parallel numbering space.

For example, if model year 2005, use the old algorithm and increment by one position for the new checksum, and recycle the SAE codeset.

Wash, rinse, and repeat to expand VIN space 30-ishfold.

Yes, it'd break systems that have the check-digit algorithm hardcoded, but VIN verification systems have to be updated regularly anyway to deal with new SAE codes, the recycling of the year digit, etc.

Or, we could just have Wal-Mart tell the auto industry to start relying on RFID tags and their numberset to uniquely identify vehicles, and eliminate the problem until we run out of RFID identifiers. :)

Re:Extend the character set?

[walt-sjc]

This completey misses the point. It's not just the database: it's the software, forms, etc. for insurance companies, law enforcement, DMV, etc. for all cities, states, provinces, countries, etc everywhere in the world. Each of these systems probably validates what is a real VIN so any changes to the current scheme will cause massive problems. Any addition of a new field will be almost as hard.

This is obviosly why they are looking at this issue now, so in 10 - 20 years when the current numbers are gone, software can be ready for any new scheme (cause that's about how long it will take.) Hopefully BECAUSE of all the code rewrites for Y2K, this task will be much easier (many old systems were completely replaced in modern languages with modern coding techniques.)

Re:Extend the character set?

[tomhudson]

As I point out elsewhere, the problem begins in 2009 (for the 2010 model year) when any software that calculates the model year based on the 10th digit is f$cked. That's 5 years from now - not 10 to 20.

The society should contact people who work on a day-to-day basis writing code to handle the non-standard vins (pre-1980). In my case, I've already put in handlers for post-2008.

Now, since all current systems ALREADY handle vins that are not exactly 17 characters long (pre-1980) by relaxing the validation schemes and enabling extra user input options, not pre-determining the model year, etc., there's not as much work as you would seem to think.

Re:Extend the character set?

[tomhudson]

We'll still need to alter all software that validates vins and automatically computes the year from the 10th digit in 17-digit vins by 2009. This can NOT be handled without altering the programs involved.

Also, the article makes a serious error:

and each one needs a unique VIN in the same way a newborn is given a Social Security number.

SSNs are not necessarily unique. There was a series of letters exchanged on this very subject in The C User's Journal a decade ago. This is just something that the general population asumes without questioning it.

Slashdotters response:

[JesseL]

Just use NAT.

If I were them

[jkauzlar]

I would start using alphanumeric characters in the serial number field (last 6 digits), giving them 36^6=2,176,782,336 possibilities instead of 10^6=1 million. Actually maybe they already do? If so, then start using the !@#$#$%^%^&*)(*& symbols!

Re:If I were them

[LittleGuy]

Actually maybe they already do? If so, then start using the !@#$#$%^%^&*)(*& symbols!

Those symbols are usually reserved for use *after* the accident with the uninsured driver.

Carmageddon

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not worried about the assembly lines coming to a screeching halt... I'm more worried about the assembly robots revolting and attacking the population!

*Duck and cover*

from the articles picture (the vin number)

[Anonymous Coward]

The vin is from this vehicle:

VIN: 3P3ES47Y8XT528059
Year/Make/Model: 1999 PLYMOUTH NEON HIGHLINE/EXPRESSO
Body Style: Pillard Hardtop 4 Dr
Engine Type: 2.0L L4 SMPI DOHC 16V
Manufactured In: MEXICO

Re:from the articles picture (the vin number)

[p51d007]

Are you running the NICB decoder for that one? I have a copy of that program (since I work for law enforcement), comes in handy for what we do to verify the check digit etc.....dips**t's always try to mess with the VIN, but forget to code it correctly...

Re:from the articles picture (the vin number)

[david_reese]

Are you running the NICB decoder for that one?

No need. Carfax has a free service where the basic details come up before you pay for your report on the VIN. Also, people with a subscription can get details on any number of cars for the sub period. Since I just bought a car for my sister, I have a sub... here's a snippet of what carfax says about this VIN:

Accident Report
Date: Source:
06/29/1999 Michigan Police Report

Detail:
Accident Reported
in Oakland County
Involving a rear impact
with another motor vehicle
Moderate/Severe damage reported
Airbag deployed

Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does the government feel that it needs to know the "ID" of my vehicle? What business is it of theirs? This is no different than other government-mandated identity programs such as Social Security numbers. Not to get tin-foil-hatty, but if you've read books like 1984 or studied leaders like Hitler, you will know that programs like this (even if they start with the best of intentions) end up going way down the slippery slope, usually with disastrous results.

Slashdotters were (rightfully) up in arms a few years back when Intel planned on embedding unique IDs into their Pentium III chips. Yet we blindly accept VINs and other intrusions into our privacy without question. Why?

Re:Good

[TopShelf]

Right on, man! Next thing you know they'll want to put unique ID's on all network interface devices.

Fight the power!

Re:Good

[Crazy Man on Fire]

Why? Cars have to be registered and insured. Typically, things that are registered (cars, guns, people, etc) have to be uniquely identifiable. Without a VIN or some similar system of identification, such registration would not be possible.

Re:Good

[The_Real_Nire]

Lets see, for warranty verification, theft protection, automobile history tracking (for accidents), recall tracking (so your car doesnt explode, hopefully).

How many more reasons do you need?

I think it ges without saying that most, if not all Pentiums did not have these sorts of problems.

Re:Good

[no reason to be here]

Why does the government feel that it needs to know the "ID" of my vehicle? What business is it of theirs?
Because they have an interest in making sure that that vehicle is safe to drive (safety inspections). Also, it makes it a little more likely that your car could be recovered if it were ever stolen. Also, I believe (not certain) that VINs are global, voluntarily created by automotive manufacturers; therfore, they wouldn't be just a US thing. Furthermore, the gov't provides all the roads on which you would be driving. The gov't identifies your car by its license plate. You give your VIN when you register your car so that there is something else to match it against other than the plates if it is stolen, in an accident, etc.

This is no different than other government-mandated identity programs such as Social Security numbers.
Yes it is. One has to have an SSN in the US, no matter what. One doesn't have to own a car (well, in some instances one DOES have to own a car, but people in a large enough metropolitan area don't have to).

Not to get tin-foil-hatty,
too late

but if you've read books like 1984 or studied leaders like Hitler, you will know that programs like this (even if they start with the best of intentions) end up going way down the slippery slope, usually with disastrous results.
A VIN isn't going to lead the SS to your door step. No one knows the VIN on a particular automobile unless they are standing right next to it and looking right at where it is printed. Now if you smash your car into a bus load of orphans, and you flee the scene on foot, then maybe the cops could check the VIN to see to whom the car is registered, and then come arrest you later. Of course, they could just as easily check the license plate.

Slashdotters were (rightfully) up in arms a few years back when Intel planned on embedding unique IDs into their Pentium III chips. Yet we blindly accept VINs and other intrusions into our privacy without question. Why?
Maybe, just maybe, /.ers see VINs as just a serial number on a car, not some sort of gov't tracking system devised by the Illuminati. I think most /.ers don't like SSNs (to use your other example), but they are way, WAY too entrenched to just rebel against. Pick your battles, as they say.

Re:Good

[J'raxis]

MAC addresses--

• Aren't necessarily unique, as some NICs are programmable;
• Aren't government-mandated;
• Aren't illegal to change;
• Aren't illegal to hide or otherwise obfuscate.

Your comparison really fell on its face. Care to try again?

Probably some truth to that.

[tgd]

My car has a seven digit number as a VIN.

I had a lot of issues getting it registered and insured, although in most cases it was just a training issue -- the people I was dealing with didn't know how to enter it correctly.

The Massachusetts RMV had no idea what to do with an odometer in kilometers though, so my title says 9,999,999 miles on it.

Re:Probably some truth to that.

[wo1verin3]

>> do with an odometer in kilometers though, so my title says 9,999,999 miles on it.

Obviously it's not a ford.

Re:Probably some truth to that.

[michaelhood]

7-digit VIN and 4-digit UID. You ARE oldschool.

Re:Probably some truth to that.

[LaCosaNostradamus]

my title says 9,999,999 miles on it

I hope you changed the oil.

Re:Probably some truth to that.

[jon787]

The Massachusetts RMV had no idea what to do with an odometer in kilometers though, so my title says 9,999,999 miles on it.

So multiplying by 0.62 didn't occur to them?

Re:Probably some truth to that.

[shawn99452]

Yes, my car also (1964 Dodge) has a VIN of less than 10 digits, all numbers. And it's on the inside door jam, since it was made 2 years before they were required to be visible outside the car. I had trouble getting it insured, and eventually the lady just put X's for the remaining digits, and the computer was okay with that. I would think though, that just adding another field, like VIN2 or something, would be an easy cheap fix. Or fixing VIN altogether, by using the first character or 2 as a length designator, so we don't have to worry about this nonsense again.

Re:Probably some truth to that.

[deacon]

Could you please share with us what "training" you did at the RMV

(a chair? horsewhip? cattle-prod? Brain-implant?)

to get them to input the number correctly?

I went thru that once a looong time ago, with a 6 digit vin on a motorcycle, and I was never able to get those @$$#0!&$ to budge off their asses. Finally had the local police department make up a vin#, with the 6 digets in the middle of it, and they took that.

Can you tell my blood pressure still Chernobyls at the memory of that whole farce?

Alternate Slashdotter's response:

[Grayden]

Perhaps this will speed the transition to VINv6...

Use More of the alphabet

[arieswind]

The second character signifies the manufacturer (General Motors is G, Ford is F, Chrysler is C)

Why not just give GM, Ford, and Chrysler another letter? GM can have G and H, Ford E and F, and Chrysler B and C

Surely every manufacturer doesn't produce as many cars as the top few

Re:Use More of the alphabet

[Trifthen]

We run an automotive listing and search system. We've been building and maintaining a list of manufacturers for every type of vehicle that started with over 50 manufacturers of regular road vehicles. Personally, I'm surprised they came up with this stupid system at all. One character for country? After removing I, O, Q, U and Z, that leaves 31. Now count how many countries there are in the world - I'll wait until you're done. Why, oh why can't they have designed something more scalable to begin with?

Re:Use More of the alphabet

[Ralph Wiggam]

That's the first thing I thought of, too.

How inefficient do you have to be to blow through a 17 character (which is not the same as a digit, Mr. Author) alphanumeric code in 30 years? They did have the good sense to throw out I,O,Q,U,and Z, something I wish other alphanumeric codes would do, and used a check digit. If used to it's full efficiency, the VIN system could identify 121 trillion vehicles for every human being on the planet.

The article is stupid. It talks about this is a big problem, compares it to Y2K, and then mentions that Armenia and Zimbabwe were assigned huge blocks that are going unused. As long as everyone is told that the system is changing and my garage doesn't try to order parts from Zimbabwe, we'll be fine.

-B

Re:Use More of the alphabet

[Azi Dahaka]

They do this already. They mostly stick to their primary character, but sometimes are assigned a different one.

Ford has F, N, and Z.
Chrysler has C.
Honda has H, 7, and S.
Toyota has T, and N. (Shared with Ford.)
Volkswagen has V and B.

VIN numbers as SSNs?

[Michael Pigott]

Maybe one could use VIN numbers as SSNs: when a car "dies" recycle it's VIN number.

Re:VIN numbers as SSNs?

[jridley]

No, because the VIN isn't just a serial number. It incorporates the year, manufacturer, and a lot of other info. A given VIN is only usable on another car of the same make, model, year, body style, and place of manufacture.

You could recycle numbers within one year; if a 2005 car got killed in the first year of its life, they could make another 2005 car with the same VIN, but that's probably not going to help much...

all too common issue

[XMichael]

This is a fairly common issue in other industries as well... In the food packaging industry they use what is called a DSS number; in addition to the generic serial number we've all known to grown and hate. This DSS number is sort of an industry number which allows the manufactures to more accurately tracking where the product what packed / shipped to, etc. The system is at it's witts ends, as these DSS numbers are appended depending on the number of destinations... Turns out when they designed the system food was only being shipped to many 3 or 4 places at the most --- now it's common for food to be shipped to upwards of a dozen places BEFORE it is even shipped to the grocery store.

all in all, same story, boo hoo, it'll cost them a bunch of money to upgrade

CCTV Systems

I'm not sure...

[jbardell]

I'm not sure if the issue is that the VIN's can't get any longer than they already are, but I know that the VIN on an older vehicle (ie. the '60 Chevy pickup I had) is a few characters shorter than a VIN of today. I would think that lengths in between these two would be useable without any major overhaul, but what do I know?

Umm.... that will be $250,000 in modifications

[HighOrbit]

Let's see... how many manhours can a consultant charge the PHB to run the following SQL query

alter table VEHICLES modify column VIN varchar(50);

Yup.. that took countless manhours.

Re:Umm.... that will be $250,000 in modifications

[jfengel]

You have to run it on every database. And you have to deal with every program that operates on it and allocates exactly 17 characters for the space. That means scanning the source code, which is wildly expensive (assuming you even still have the source code).

Every program which parses the VIN will be confused by a change in the format. Again, more code scanning.

When any two databases pass VINs to one another, they both have to use the same standard.

Once the code is fixed, you have to install it on every computer. You have to synchronize the database update and the code install, and every set of databases that hook up with each other. You can make things compatible enough to be prepared to communicate with non-upgraded databases, but that means more code, and more testing.

You have to test the bejeezus out of it, too, because some of these systems can't afford to crash.

So the change is going to be a lot more expensive than one SQL query.

Let me clarify...

[GillBates0]

One potential fix: Poach VINs assigned to smaller countries such as Botswana, which don't mass produce vehicles.

Since the article wasn't clear on this, and a comparison with Y2K was made.

The current VIN system is local to the US (and probably Canada, not sure). Other countries do not share the VIN system/database/namespace. Sure, the manufacturers are located all over the world, and there's a unique ID for country of manufacture, but the VIN numbering is only mandatory for vehicles in the US.

Other countries have their own numbering system (usually a chassis/SL No.), and their databases are built around their unique identifiers.

So yes, their proposed solution is feasible, because right now, there are Country codes assigned to countries which will most likely not export vehicles to the US in the near future. But the comparison with Y2K is off because of the fact that this problem is local to the US.

Re:CRY!

[OverlordQ]

no:
2004-07-17 Sat - GPS Receiver Almanac Rollover, 256 weeks after GPS 1024-week rollover.
2004-12-31 Fri - 2004/366 - cf. 1996-366.
2005-??-?? ??? - "Some *really* old versions of UNIX (e.g. 16-bit BSD) die in 2005.".
2005-11-29 Tue - 04:53:20 UTC : 212 Gs from JD 0.0.
2006-03-29 Wed - Solar Eclipse, Brazil - Africa - Turkey - Asia.
2006-12-31 Sun - HP3000, End Of Life.
2007-01-01 Mon - Lithuania joins the Euro?
2007-01-01 Mon - "USA FAA computers fail, 32 years from 1975". TZ? 2006?
2007-08-09 Thu - CMJD 54321.
2008-01-19 Sat - 30 years before 2038-01-19 - mortgage look-ahead?
2008-03-23 Sun - Easter Sunday is unusually early this year (previously this day in 1913 & next in 2160; earliest, March 22, 1818 & 2285).
2009-01-01 Sun - NOAA: Termination of satellite processing of distress signals from 121.5/243 MHz emergency beacons. Use 406 MHz.
2009-02-13 Fri - 23:31:30 GMT is UNIX time_t 1234567890.
2009-09-09 Wed - 090909 is another possible valid nonsense or marker date; as with, of course, other 0x0x0x & 1x1x1x dates, or anything with YY small.
2???-??-?? ??? - Introduction of the Euro in the UK ???
2010-01-01 Fri - Y2.01K. There will be some who have coded only for Years 200#.
2010-01-01 Fri - Sorting YYMMDD decade-reversed covers 1990-2009 only.
2010-01-01 Fri - Reported ANSI C library overflow. Very dubious. RSVP if you can explain it.
2010-12-25 Sat - CMJD 55555.
2011-09-14 Wed - @01:46:39 UTC less leap seconds, GPS 999999999 seconds.
2011-11-11 Fri - Seen as a "marker" date - cf. 1999-09-09. Contains 11/11/11 11:11:11.


taken from: Critical and Significant Dates

It wasn't an engineer ...

[auburnate]

Whoever came up with the the VIN system as it stands needs to be drawn and quartered. I assure you that had any engineer worth his salt been given the plan of VIN back in 1981, he wouldn't have allowed there to be the imminent shortage we face now. By simply giving the right data fields (specifically the last six) more than enough space, we would have never faced this crisis ... and I hesitate to call this a crisis ...

They could mix up the alphanumeric rules a little

[beef curtains]

As a software developer for a gargantuan insurance company, let me assure you that I would be rather grumpy (to say the least) if I came into work one day and was told we have to overhaul our VIN-handling code. That would suck. Royally.

However, automakers could start mixing some alphas into the numeric vehicle-identifier portions of VINs...this could provide a few million (at least...too lazy to do math) more string combinations, and wouldn't affect the parts that IT people care about.

This is dumb...

[jwthompson2]

We have a system that is potentially going to cause companies to have to upgrade their systems in order to handle a new ID scheme. I understand that companies want to save money, but eventually these things will run out and upgrades will need to be done. Would a smart move not be to bite the bullet and just produce a new numbering scheme with more longevity?

Wait, what part of this should be surprising?

[Mongoose Disciple]

Let's think about this:

They designed the system in 1981.

They expected it to last 30 years.

So that's... until 2011?

And now they're saying it'll run out around the end of this decade. That'd be about 2010-2011ish, no?

Sounds like everything's going according to plan.

Re:Wait, what part of this should be surprising?

[Ann Elk]

Sounds like everything's going according to plan.

It's too bad the plan sucks.

Re:Wait, what part of this should be surprising?

[spectasaurus]

Really, I was going to post the same thing. Seems kind of like the way things were supposed to work. Makes you wonder what they were thinking in 1981.

"Hmm, this new VIN thing is good for 30 years."

"Then what'll we do?"

"I don't know, I'll be retired."

"Oh yeah, me too"

"Let them figure it out."

"Yeah, at least we'll get to 2000 OK, let's see those banks and nuclear reactors do that."

VIN Number sparse field

[jfmiller]

Actually with a 17 digit number ther would be 100,000,000,000,000,000 different VIN number and that doesn account for the fact that the 17 digits are alphanumeric. the problem is that there is information encoded in many of the digits. For example, the first charicter will idintify the country the engine and body were joined (where the care was "manufactured") others idintify the manufacturer, modle year, etc...

The problem will most likely be solved by assigning each country a secont third or fourth(for us and Japan) identifying digit opening up the rest of the namespace anew.

Re:I for welcome our new VIN invaders

[Crazy Man on Fire]

Um, actually, if they expected it to last 30 years and they expect to run out of unique VINs at the end of the current decade, it will have lasted 30 years.

So many cars in the world...

[eamacnaghten]

Hmm - let me see - a 17 digit alphanumeric field - that is 286,511,799,958,070,431,838,109,696 different combinations.

I know they had made a lot of cars, but that many?

Re:So many cars in the world...

[OverlordQ]

Your math doesn't hold up. Just because there are 26^17 combo's doesn't mean they all can/could be used.

EG: characters 4-8 are body style/features/engine/type/etc and 10 is the year.

I'm sure a car from 2004 will have any of the similar features of a car from the 80's, so there goes 1 whole factor, down to 26^16, I'm sure if you went through the other characteristics it would narrow it down even further.

Re:So many cars in the world...

[passion]

26?!

Umm, let's talk about 26 letters (A-Z) - I'm assuming these systems are case insensitive... plus 10 numbers (0-9), I'd say that would make it 36.

Perhaps they could dramatically increase their potential name-space by making the VINs case-sensitive. That would allow 62 possible characters per place.

IDEA!!!

[WwWonka]

...vehicle ID numbering system (VIN) will soon run out of unique numbers

Ewww, ewwww...quick, rename it VINv6, adopt the change, talk about it for years on end, scare folks with the apocolyptic visions of a VINv4 disaster, implement sparingly, even have some Finish dude incorporate it into his own car line he started from scratch(obviously stolen from Ford ideas) and have absolutely NO ONE use it due to their legacy cars!

They do, sometimes....

[Otto]

If they produce more than a million units of any particular car in a year, they use letters in here. Sometimes they use letters anyway, to denote different car types and such. The last six characters can be essentially anything 0-Z, it leaves it up to the manufacturer.

The problem is not that duplicates will occur, it's that the year number will repeat starting in 2011. The 7th character (from the right) denotes the year, and anybody can see, this means that it loops over every 36 years. Not particularly good planning, methinks.

One simple solution is to recommend both use of all 36 chars in the serial number and to denote the first character of that number to be a character never used there before by most manufacting companies. In most cases, car companies rarely use anything above A or B for the first character of the serial, so for some this will be easy to work around. For others, it may be more difficult as they'll have to change their own internal coding scheme for the serial.

Most probable change is that the characters for countries (first character) will be stolen, like happened with 4 and 5 for US cars.

Re:They do, sometimes....

[tomhudson]

Otto wrote: it's that the year number will repeat starting in 2011 ... it loops over every 36 years No, it starts repeating in 2009 (uses 'A"), for the 2010 model year, and repeats every 30 years, because the letters I, O, Q, U, Z and the number Zero are not used to denote years:

Here's the complete table 1980 to 2039.

A 1980, 2010 I not used.. Q not used.. Y 2000, 2030 6 2006, 2036
B 1981, 2011 J 1988, 2018 R 1994, 2024 Z not used.. 7 2007, 2037
C 1982, 2012 K 1989, 2019 S 1995, 2025 0 not used.. 8 2008, 2038
D 1983, 2013 L 1990, 2020 T 1996, 2026 1 2001, 2031 9 2009, 2039
E 1984, 2014 M 1991, 2021 U not used.. 2 2002, 2032
F 1985, 2015 N 1992, 2022 V 1997, 2027 3 2003, 2033
G 1986, 2016 O not used.. W 1998, 2028 4 2004, 2034
H 1987, 2017 P 1993, 2023 X 1999, 2029 5 2005, 2035

Re:They do, sometimes....

[tomhudson]

Darn formatting. Here it is corrected. Sorry, my fault :-(

Otto wrote:

it's that the year number will repeat starting in 2011 ... it loops over every 36 years

No, it starts repeating in 2009, not 2011 (for the 2010 model year), and repeats every 30 years, because the letters I, O, Q, U, Z and the number Zero are not used to denote years:

A 1980, 2010 I not used.. Q not used.. Y 2000, 2030 6 2006, 2036
B 1981, 2011 J 1988, 2018 R 1994, 2024 Z not used.. 7 2007, 2037
C 1982, 2012 K 1989, 2019 S 1995, 2025 0 not used.. 8 2008, 2038
D 1983, 2013 L 1990, 2020 T 1996, 2026 1 2001, 2031 9 2009, 2039
E 1984, 2014 M 1991, 2021 U not used.. 2 2002, 2032
F 1985, 2015 N 1992, 2022 V 1997, 2027 3 2003, 2033
G 1986, 2016 O not used.. W 1998, 2028 4 2004, 2034
H 1987, 2017 P 1993, 2023 X 1999, 2029 5 2005, 2035

There is a technical solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Virtual Private Vehicles. It's sort of a blend between a public mass-transit system and your own private vehicle.

Your car would not have its own VIN while traveling. To get to your destination, you "tunnel" your vehicle into the back of a flatbed truck. Your vehicle would be packaged into the flatbed truck along with other vehicles. Once your vehicle arrives, it would be unloaded and you would take it alone to finish the local part of the trip.

Why not retire..

[MisanthropicProgram]

and reuse the VINs from junked cars? Someone somewhere, especially in the insurance industry, must be tracking them.

Ooooooooh well.

[rice_burners_suck]

Well, this is a pretty serious situation, but slightly different than the Y2K problem. First of all, most of the software affected by Y2K was written in COBOL and ran on all kinds of mainframes. These were the kind of computers that had been programmed and debugged at one point in the past, and were eventually made to work flawlessly. They ran so well that the companies using them almost forgot they existed. When Y2K started approaching, it was suddenly necessary to dig up a bunch of really old systems, for many of which the documentation, or even the source code, was missing. Imagine having to re-create programming that had existed for years, just to keep date records correct. This was a huge expense for many organizations. The Y2K problem, however, only affected the kind of software that used 2 characters to store the date. Most programming done since the 80's, or even a bit earlier than that, uses integers to keep track of the date, and there are different dates that these things will roll over. So they are not affected by Y2K per se, but by a similar problem that will affect various systems from time to time.

On the other hand, the VIN problem will affect a larger number of computers than the Y2K problem. There are, of course, the few big manufacturers, who keep track of parts and whatnot. There are thousands of dealers, and perhaps tens of thousands of auto repair facilities. Then, of course, there are all the governments around the world that keep track of auto registration. All of these locations use VIN numbers in various ways, be it for record keeping, tracing design decisions and parts, locating parts for repairs, etc. Now imagine that all of these locations, some very big, and some very small, need new programming because of a change to the VIN system. And this change will affect all of these locations at the same time, not from time to time as with date rollover problems. Further, most auto repair facilities use computers and programming that they obtained years ago, and who knows if the software vendor is even around anymore. The source code is probably long gone for many of these applications.

The problem is that the VIN numbers are being used up as new vehicles are being manufactured. When the last VIN is gone, all of these systems will have to be up to date for the change, and that means a lot of money spent on new computers, new programming, and whatever trouble it takes to convert old records to the new system, which will have to be backwardly compatible with the old VIN numbering system.

Let this be a lesson: Whenever a unique number is needed, let's use about 40 digits in a base 36 system, consisting of letters and numbers. That'll cover us for a while.

This will last 30 years, no problem...

[Otto]

The VIN includes a year code (10th character from the left) that denotes the year the car was made. However, this loops after 30 years (they left out potentially confusing chars in the yearcode, like I, O, U, Q, Z, and zero).

But in 2011, the year loops. That's the only problem, really.

Good for speeders!

[Just Some Guy]

I got clocked once at a pretty decent rate on an interstate highway. I was in the military at the time and in uniform, and the nice highway patrolman wrote the ticket for 5 mph over the limit (which was significantly under my real speed, unless you're my insurance agent, in which case I was framed, darn it, framed!).

I had recently upgraded my car and my home state lets you move your license plates to your new car as long as you sell your old one at the same time. Fortunately for me, the state hadn't gotten around to turning my '68 Mustang into a '92 Prizm and the patrolman copied the information straight from the computer to the ticket.

When I received a summons in the mail, I disputed it with the cause being that I was in a '92 Prizm and did not even own a '68 Mustang, and the complaint was completely dropped.

The moral of the story: if I find out that I share a VIN with an Edsel on blocks in some farmer's pasture, then the police will have to use a spectrometer to measure my speed. I'll be driving my "get out of jail free" car until the sonic booms shake it apart.

Re:Uh-oh

[AKAImBatman]

I wouldn't worry too much about it. Every industry eventually hits this dilemma and every industry deals with it in their own way. Just a few years ago (actually prior to Y2K), some of the companies in the business of Livestock Genetics were worried they'd run out of Bull numbers. (I think the standard was something like AC0023 where the first two digits identified the company and the last four were the bull's number.)

The various companies formed an IT standards committee and came to an agreement on extending the numbers. It took a year or two, but the systems got converted and life went on. It really wasn't that big of a deal. As a bonus, a real standard for data processing showed up. The previous number scheme was designed for paper and allowed for certain variations which gave computer systems a fit. e.g. Sometimes the number might be written as AC23 or simply 23. This made it difficult for a computer to decide if the code was the domestic code or the international code.

Re:I for welcome our new VIN invaders

[killmenow]

Ok, so what we have here is:

1. a claim that the VIN system was created in 1981, and expected to last 30 years
2. a claim that the numbers could run out by the end of the decade

So, they expected it to last 30 years, and now somebody says it'll probably only last 29 years and you say, "I really hate to see somone that points out that 'It'll Last for X years' and it never does.'

I don't know about anybody else, but if 23 years ago, someobdy engineered a system that was expected to last 30 years...and they were only off by one year...I'd cut them some slack.

Granted, they should've thought about what would happen after thirty years, but they probably did. In fact, they probably thought long and hard about it and decided either:

(a) we'll all be teleporting everywhere by then and cars won't matter anymore; or,
(b) we'll all be retired by then so who gives a rat's ass.

Re:I for welcome our new VIN invaders

[the_mad_poster]

Your clear, concise understanding of technology issues is only undermined by the minor fact that you screwed up all of the examples that you gave. 1) The "640k" quip is a misunderstood urban legend. 2) There's nothing wrong with IPv4 which is why there is no rush to switch it out. 3) The fact that pretty much everything kept running on 1/1/00 even though most of it was never touched for an "update" suggests that maybe it wasn't a big deal after all.

On the subject of IP, the only inherent problem in IPv4 was that nobody expected us to try hooking everything including the kitchen sink - literally - to the Internet.

Stocking up

[sjonke]

"Golly, if it's that serious maybe I should start stocking up on MREs and ammunition in preparation for the day the assembly lines come to a screeching halt."

No, it's time to stock up on VINs. Anyone want to buy the rights to 4S6RN38F94L296406 ?

Re:Argh...

[kfg]

Not strangle, no. It irks a bit I suppose, nonetheless words of common phrases often end up linked into a singleword over time.

Some body starts hyphenating the words, then, eventually, overtime, the hyphen is removed. Email irks too. It starts out as an acronym, then changes into a word. It's a total bastardization of the language, yet, thereitis.

And thereisntanythingyoucandoaboutit.

KFG

Bad

[EboMike]

This tinfoil crap is slowly getting on my nerves. Doesn't anyone see the purpose of a VIN?

Whenever I buy a car, the first thing I get is the VIN so I can check the car's background. This is invaluable. A central registry about cars has many advantages.

If I remember correctly...

[Anonym1ty]

If I remember correctly the left 11 digits are used for make, model, production location, model year etc.... ---the 8th digit from the right is the model year alpha-numeric 1-9 + A-Z they skip 0, I, O and Q (L = 1990 and S=1995)

They could become case sensitive with the year, or use mor characters in the ASCII table.

I thought the last 6 digits were supposed to be unique, except it doesn't make sense since I have never seen letters there (maybe there are) and that would have broke after 1 Million cars.

They could just reassign the letter used for the manufacturer and start over with the year code. This doesn't sound like it has to be that big of a problem for them. Do all GM's have to start with 1G and all Fords with 1F and all toyotas with 1T?????

Re:I for welcome our new VIN invaders

[cdrudge]

If you really want to be a stickler, I suggest you start counting years from the very first one.

I'd like to do this, but I'm not real sure where to start. What year is this just so I know for future reference. And did you start counting when the big bang happened, or when god said let there be light?

why is this a crisis?

[fermion]

will be exhausted by the end of the decade

The Society of Automotive Engineers, which established the existing VIN system in 1981 and expected it to last 30 years, has formed a committee to address the impending shortage.

Perhaps I am daft, or perhaps the reporting was inaccurate, but I do not see the crisis. The second quote indicates the system was established in 1981 and was expect to last 30 years, which is 2011. The first quote indicates that the numbers will run out around 2009. Does this mean that the auto industry is in crisis because of a 10% error in their estimation? It really sounds like the numbers running out was expected, and the meeting to discuss the future should just be routine.

Unlike the Y2K thing, in which everyone assumed that computers would be replaced regularly, there was certainly no doubt that we would still be making cars in 2010, and if we depended on a VIN, those cars would need one.

From a programming point of view, I am sure many database designers used the VIN as the primary key, and this is why it will cost so much to revamp. After all, we were all assured that the number will always unique. Common sense, however, tells us not to trust anything we don't have total control over, and not to make design decisions based on the assumption that outside forces will never change their minds. Therefore, it might make sense for an auto manufacturer to use the VIN as a primary key. However, I wonder why it made sense for everyone else to do the same, assuming that this is the case.

OT but what about credit card numbers?

[tetranz]

I'm surprised we haven't heard something similar about CC numbers. Debit and credit cards, prepaid etc AFAIK all share the same numbering world wide. Does anyone know?

BSD

[Anonymous Coward]

>2005-??-?? ??? - "Some *really* old versions of UNIX (e.g. 16-bit BSD) die in 2005.".

See! BSD is dying!!

VIN Format

[dopaz]

Lets take a look at a VIN. First you can only use capital letters and numbers, except for the letters I, O and Q. If you can't tell if its a letter or a number then its a number. WVW EE83A2 SE219476 The first three characters are the WMI, world manufacturer identifier. With the above VIN its pretty obvious who made this car (volkswagen). I can't speak for other manufacturers, but with volkswagen the first character is the country of manufacture. This Passat was built in Germany. The next six characters are the VDS, vehicle descriptor section. Manufacturers use this to describe the vehicle traits, and if you google for "volkswagen vin decoder" (or whatever manufacturer you're looking for) you can probably find out what the codes represent. The last digit in this section is a check digit. The final 8 characters are the VIS, vehicle identifier section. At least, the last 5 digits must be numbers and it is the production number of the car (serial number). The first character in this section is the year of manufacture. With VW, the second character in this section is representative of the plant that built the car. The remaining digits are the production number. If you look at the year of manufacture it rolls over every 30 years anyways. With a little common sense it shouldn't matter if two cars have the same VIN... there would be an age difference of 30 years.

Chicken Little

[__aanhjr1420]

"[...]would dwarf the challenges and expenses spawned by the Y2K computer dilemma."

So, in this engineer's opinion, we've got more systems using VINs than dates?

They can't tell a 1981 Buick from a 2011 Buick?

[Secrity]

And I thought that the Y2k issue was sort of shortsighted. These people have NO excuse for this fiasco. In 1981, the people who invented these VIN's thought that 31 years was sufficient? They didn't know that there were cars around that were more than 31 years old then? They thought so little of the cars made at that time to think that none of them would last for 31 years? To think, our tax money will help the DMV fix this problem, no matter how they fix it.

Bad analogy in article

[gotr00t]

In the article, it keeps mentioning how a "VIN is to a vehice as DNA is to a human," however, this comparison is flawed in many ways.

First of all, you use the VIN to seach for details about a vehicle in a database, its not there to build a vehicle out of, which is the essential purpose of DNA for humans.

Secondly, you can't use a DNA sequence to seach for information about a person by simply typing it into a form somewhere on the net.

And then there exists the fact that there exist humans with the exact same DNA. Identical twins, for example, have the same genetic code.

They should say something like "a VIN is to a vehicle as an SSN is to a person." Even though the SSN is only in the US, its still a better analogy in comparison.

No way!

[SuperKendall]

Impossible! How would they reach us, why they'd need a million cars to... oh. Crap!

Could be...

[SuperKendall]

>> do with an odometer in kilometers though, so my title says 9,999,999 miles on it.

Obviously it's not a ford.

Well, it could be - probably right after the purchase he had to roll it backwards a few feet to get it up on the blocks.

extend alphas Re:Extend the character set?

[swschrad]

allow letters in the serial number portion, overlay models onto the "old" model designations, revisit closed plant IDs for that section of the VIN... lots of possibilities out there. it's pretty simple to fix any code that demands that the last 6 characters be numeric, for instance, and the hardest part is for folks to accept that if you set too small an address space, you have to hack it later and fool up your pretty rules.

this is not rocket science, and civilization will not die.

The answer is obvious - VIN portability.

[djh101010]

Now, we just need some clueless politician and/or judge to decree that we need to be able to keep the same VIN when we switch cars. After all, it's just as personal as a phone number or an IP address, right?

Who cares if it completely neuters the data model, is hard if not impossible to implement, and results in massive confusuion and overhead nightmares, it's the in thing to do, making all these pesky numbers portable.

Come to think of it, my VIN already is portable, I put a few hundred miles on it a month.

Re:You're wrong

[multiplexo]

I speak from experience

Is this the perfect /. post or what? Someone posting as AC, saying that another poster is wrong, claiming experience and then not providing any further information. It's as if this is the Jungian archetype of a /. post, the Platonic ideal, the ne plus ultra.

Re:I for welcome our new VIN invaders

[YankeeInExile]

Excellent idea except for the problem that make universe takes a really long time to compile.

Outsource it!

[lesv]

It's just time to bite the bullet, and rewrite all that code. I'm sure that Detroit, the Gov., and all others concerned don't mind relying on India, China, and Russia for their core applications. After all, they supported laying off local software developers. :)

You'll never work in this town again! ... Unless, of course we need you.

Fine With Me

[CyborgWarrior]

I ground the VIN numbers off my car everytime I ermm....get.....a new one :-D

Re:CRY!

[Anonymous Coward]

Lithuania is already a member of the EU, since May 1 2004.

Re:I for welcome our new VIN invaders

[Incoherent07]

20/20 hindsight brigade reporting for duty, I see. Besides, making your hardware (read: VIN stamper) modular is a bit harder.

Re:A call to arms....

[StalinsNotDead]

So it's really just the US that's having problems, right? So now we'll be taking over countries for their VIN prefixes....

Yeah. Those conspiracy-lovers think it was all about oil. But in reality it was the unused VIN prefixes in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Re:Red Tape

[pclminion]

The VIN isn't just an ID, though, it encodes all sorts of relevant information. Each car manufacturer follows the same basic scheme, but the details of how the data are encoded varies between car makers.

For example, the VIN can encode the make, model, year, original color, original interior type, factory accessories, the manufacturing line it came off of, etc. It is true that this information could be compressed to some degree, but one of the key features of the VIN is that it is human readable (at least by people who are experienced with it), and doing "clever" things to compress the data into fewer digits will break that.

For example, consider what would happen if we applied your advice to the Y2K problem and tried to find a clever encoding to make "better use" of the available digits.

It was common to encode a date using 6 digits: 2 for the day, 2 for the month, and 2 for the year. Suppose we continue to use 6 digits, but instead of encoding the date as MM-DD-YY, simply write the number of days it has been since January 1, 1970. Using this encoding, it is possible to represent dates for (approximately) the next 2700 years, without making the date field wider than 6 digits.

It should be obvious, though, that such an encoding would be extremely frustrating since it doesn't map to our normal concept of months and days. Quick, what month does day number 516672 fall in? This is exactly why the right choice for Y2K was to simply expand the fields to use the entire year. And the same argument applies to VINs.

Hello?

[CaptDeuce]

Unlike telephone companies, which simply created new area codes to cope with a surge in households, cell phones and fax machines, ...

Simply? Donchya just love it when a complex problem can be dismissed with that simp... er, ... single word? We're running out of area codes too.

Then there's large metro areas that have switched to 10 or even 11 digit dialing. Say you move to such a place and you take your phone with with you -- you know, the one with all your those numbers programmed into it by your wife -- and you need to add the area codes to all of them. Going the other way, some (many? most?) areas that only use 7 digit dialing and you gotta remove the area codes.

No big deal you say? Chances are it's her phone and she lost the manual. Or maybe it just seems to always happen that way.

Then there's area code splits. I'd hate to be responsible for any sizable contact database when that happens.

Good thing that phone numbers can be dealt with so simply.

:^j

OK, show of hands: how many of you know two or more VINs? Good. Now all you smart asses put your hands down. Ah. I see one hand up in ... I think that's Montana ... and there's three in North Carolina. OK, hands down.

Now, how many of you know three or more phone numbers?

[earth's orbit shifts slightly]

Thank you.

Unicode, baby

[Atario]

"It's 1 Z D R J (aleph) (delta) (omicron) (one quarter vulgar fraction) (ordinal indicator, masculine) (cyrillic capital letter KJE) (surjection, z notation finite). Oh shoot, I forgot the (german penny sign). Lemme start all over..."

don't forget the handwriting

[Tangurena]

Almost all of the warranty forms used by GM Ford and Chrysler (used for fixing radios or other electronics in the vehicle) have one stage where human handwriting is used. Uppercase and lower case can be really hard for even humans to distinguish. Along with some idiot leaving off 1 digit from the VIN can make the warranty processing situation more challenging.

Dealing with handwriting is why certain characters were eliminated. Think of error correcting/preventing codes. The check digit really only existed to prevent the casual abuser from falsifying warranty claims and VIN tags.

Re:I for welcome our new VIN invaders

[aardvarkjoe]

Doesn't IP have four million digits?

Not to nitpick or anything -- but no. IPv4 allows for 4 billion (and change) possible addresses: 2^32, minus a bit for addresses which aren't usable for various reasons. "Digit" is not a synonym for a possible address.

OK, yeah, that was nitpicking, but since I've seen at least two people make the same mistake in this thread, I wanted to point it out :)

A solution for all IDs for all time

[Un pobre guey]

varchar2(1152921504606846976)

Actually, it's two characters for country...

[Otto]

It's just that countries get a range of those two characters. While the US has 1*, 4*, and 5*, and Canada has 2*, Mexico has 3A-3W and Costa Rica has 3X-37.

The whole first three characters (known as the WMI) get assigned by the SAE, according to whatever-the-hell-system they feel like using. They just happen to assign it certain ways.

Google for "VIN Country Codes" for the complete list.

patent opportunity

[martinflack]

Quick, someone patent VIN's with one more digit....

DMV Training

[ArsSineArtificio]

Could you please share with us what "training" you did at the RMV

It puts the numbers in the correct boxes, or else it gets the hose again.

We have to rewrite before 2009 anyway ...

[tomhudson]

We've already got a problem with "recycling" the 10th digit (the year code). In the 2010 model year (2009), vehicles will have the same year code ("A") as vehicles made in 1980. All software that automatically fills in the date based on the 10th digit is going to fail in 2009 - 5 years from now..

Remember - you heard it here first (PS - I already solved this problem for one piece of software by having a drop-down select box that lets you choose the year range - pre-1980, 1980 to 2008, 2009 and up. User selects the range, and the proper year is calculated. reject vin if <> 17 chars && > 1979. Handles pre-1980 already :-)

As for the rest, you might want to go here for more information on decoding VINs.

Re:Morons!!!!

[Pedrito]

Not really. You are some 40 year old SAE guy in a room thinking 30 years? Great! I'll be retired by the time the shit hits the fan. After that, who gives a rats ass.

Yeah, but it's not like cars hadn't been around a lot more than 30 years by the 70s already. Did they really think we'd all be flying helicopters in 30 years? Come on.

MACs only have to be unique on the same segment.

[Ayanami Rei]

VINs, on the other hand, need to be unique globally.

17 digits?

[mwm158]

If this thing is 17 digits, that leaves 10^17 possible VIN numbers. How many cars are being made?!? 100,000,000,000,000,000 Vin numbers. I think they have adminstration issues in how they distribute these numbers, not a lack of them.

Re:17 digits?

[MrRee]

Working for one of the major auto manufacturers I feel impelled to respond.

For us, the 17 digit vin is broken into a number of different fields. The last six numbers are the actual serial number field of the car. There are other fields for year, production facility, model, etc. So in any given year, for any given model, there are 999,999 possible serial numbers that can be produced. The next year, the field containing the year code changes so we have all 999,999 combinations available for use again.

The problem: We don't really use all 999,999 combinations. Instead, we subgroup them out. 200000 is Ford, 600000 is mercury--you get the point. The solution is make all 999,999 combinations of the last six digits available.

I fail to see the importance of this...

[CptSkippy]

considering that the VIN system is not reliable prior to 1986. Validating a VIN works something like this...

If VIN is post 1985 then Validate else accept it for what it is.

Just tweak this code to say...

If VIN is post 1985 and pre 2005 then Validate else if post 2004 validate with new 2005 algorithm.

problem f***ing solved. This is just another Y2k scare. VIN information is so botched this won't even register on the radar. I work for an Auto insurance company and I can tell you that atleast 20% of the VINs on our policies are a Hash missing the serial number, plant of manufacter and a couple other useless tidbits. The Insurance Industry only uses the VIN to ensure a valid rate.

Dwarf Y2k? LOL

[jgoemat]

Longer codes would require a major overhaul of computer systems that would dwarf the challenges and expenses spawned by the Y2K computer dilemma, said Dave Proefke, chairman of the committee.

Dwarf the challenges of Y2K? Give me a break... What percentage of computer systems use only 17 characters for a VIN and cannot be changed with an 'alter table' command? Any of them would probably also be the same systems that would have been affected by Y2K. I guarantee dates are used in many more places than VIN numbers are.

Besides, there are all kinds of ideas in the article itself for getting around it, including many small countries that don't even produce vehicles that use VINs that are taking up a lot of the numbers. Cars build before 1981 didn't even have a standard, each company made up their own VIN numbers. The systems still have to account for those, so we could always go back to the old system. Many cars are out there now with duplicate VINs.

There is LOADS of redundancy

[Andy_R]

Characters 4-8 are for body style, engine type, model and series.
Character 10 is the model year.
The last 6 characters are the serial number.

Unless a manufacturer makes more than 999,999 each of about 33^4 different models per year, I don't see the problem.