Editorial standards
How we write and check this site
Every page here is built from primary sources, says plainly what it cannot tell you, and gets corrected when it is wrong.
Who publishes it
RunThatVIN is published by Pixoware. Guides and make pages carry the Pixoware name rather than an individual byline. The about page explains why the site exists.
Where the facts come from
Decoded specifications come from NHTSA's vPIC catalogue, and recall campaigns from NHTSA's recall database, both fetched from NHTSA's public APIs. The structure of a VIN comes from the standard that defines it: 49 CFR Part 565 and ISO 3779. The make pages list World Manufacturer Identifier codes exactly as vPIC returns them and show the date the data was retrieved. The data sources page covers the coverage and the gaps in detail.
We do not use commercial data aggregators, and we do not publish a figure we cannot trace back to a source.
What we will not claim
We have no access to title records, title brands, accident or damage history, theft records, odometer readings, liens or ownership history, so no page here offers them or implies otherwise. Recall lists are indexed by year, make and model. Whether a recall has been repaired on one particular vehicle is something only NHTSA's own VIN lookup can tell you.
Nothing on the site is general legal, financial or mechanical advice. The guides explain what a VIN encodes; a decision about a specific vehicle deserves an inspection and the official records.
Dates
Each guide shows when it was first published and when its content last changed. The updated date moves only when what the page says changes, not when the layout around it does. Make pages show the date their NHTSA data was retrieved.
Advertising and independence
The site is free and is paid for by advertising served through Google AdSense. Advertisers have no say in what we write, and nothing here is sponsored. The privacy policy explains what the advertising and analytics scripts can and cannot see.
Corrections
If something here is wrong, email inquiry@pixoware.com. When we fix a factual error in a guide, its updated date changes to the day of the fix.