Enter the 17-character VIN of your Audi to see the factory basics. Free, with no registration.
Look on the dashboard, the driver's door frame or in the registration document.
Type all 17 characters. The letters I, O and Q are never used in a VIN.
See the factory basics for free, and order a full report for the history behind the VIN.
Enter a 17-character VIN and the decoder tells you the manufacturer, the model year and the country where the car was built. It is free and needs no registration. Our Audi data covers 62 models, from the older 100, 80 and 5000 to the A4, Q5, e-tron GT and R8, with model years running from 1967 to the present.
A VIN holds no accident entries, mileage readings, theft records or owner changes. That information comes from a paid vehicle history report.
Pick a Audi model to see how its VIN works.
The first three characters are the World Manufacturer Identifier, or WMI. For Audi we recognise 93U, 93V, 99A, TRU, WA1, WAU, WAV and WMB. Between them they point to Germany, Hungary and Brazil as countries of manufacture. These are the codes in our list, and the list is not exhaustive.
Characters 4 to 8 are the descriptor section, where the maker encodes details of the vehicle. Character 9 is the check digit. North American VINs must use it, while many European VINs fill that position differently. Character 11 identifies the plant, and characters 12 to 17 are the serial number.
The model year sits in character 10. An L there stands for 2020, and a 1 stands for 2001. The letters I, O and Q are never used in a VIN. Audi model names such as Q3, Q5 and Q7 contain a Q, but you will not find that letter anywhere in the VIN itself. This 17-character system applies to cars built since 1981. Some of the Audi models in our data are older than that, and their numbers may not follow this layout.
Every VIN has six parts. This is what each of them means.
| Part | Characters | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| WMI | 1 to 3 | World manufacturer identifier: who built the vehicle and where |
| VDS | 4 to 8 | Vehicle descriptor: model, body type and engine, as set by the manufacturer |
| Check digit | 9 | Control value that helps confirm the VIN is valid |
| Model year | 10 | Code for the model year |
| Plant | 11 | Code for the assembly plant |
| Serial | 12 to 17 | Production sequence number of this vehicle |
On the driver's side, visible through the windshield.
On a sticker on the door frame or the edge of the door.
Printed in the vehicle registration or title.
Stamped on the firewall or the frame on many models.
A VIN is built from six parts, and each one says something about the vehicle. Our guides explain how to read it and what it can and cannot tell you.
Enter the 17-character VIN and see the factory basics in seconds.
It is usually printed on a plate at the base of the windscreen on the driver side, and on a label in the door frame. It also appears on the registration documents. Compare all of them, because they should show the same 17 characters.
The first three characters are the WMI, which names the manufacturer and the country. We map 93U, 93V, 99A, TRU, WA1, WAU, WAV and WMB to Audi, covering Germany, Hungary and Brazil. If your VIN starts differently, the decoder may simply not have that code in its list.
Look at the tenth character. For example, L means 2020 and 1 means 2001. Our Audi data covers model years from 1967 to the present, but the 17-character format only applies to cars built since 1981.
It reads only the VIN, so it shows the manufacturer, model year and country of manufacture. Accidents, mileage, theft and previous owners are not stored in the number. The decoder cannot tell you which body style or engine a particular car has either.
Make sure the VIN on the car matches the one in the papers, and that the model year from the tenth character fits the advert. Then inspect the car in person and ask for service records. The decoder confirms the basics, but it cannot tell you how the car was treated.