Enter the 17-character VIN of your BAW 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.
The BAW decoder reads the 17 characters of a VIN and tells you the manufacturer, the model year and the country of manufacture. In our data BAW has one model, the Pony, and the version data covers model years from 2023 to the present.
A VIN does not hold accident damage, mileage, theft records or the number of previous owners. That information comes from a paid vehicle history report. The decoder itself is free and needs no registration.
Pick a BAW model to see how its VIN works.
Every VIN on a car built since 1981 has 17 characters, and the letters I, O and Q are never used. The first three characters are the WMI, which identifies the manufacturer and the country. Characters 4 to 8 describe the vehicle, character 9 is a check digit, character 10 gives the model year, character 11 the plant, and characters 12 to 17 are the serial number.
At the moment we have no WMI codes mapped to BAW, so there is no code we can list here and no country we can name from the first three characters. This is a gap in our list, not a comment on any VIN you hold. A VIN that begins with other characters is not made any less valid by that.
The model year character is the easiest part to check yourself. For the Pony range in our data, a P in position 10 means 2023, R means 2024, S means 2025 and T means 2026. The check digit in position 9 is required in North America, while many European VINs fill that position differently, so do not expect it to behave the same on every car.
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 on a plate at the base of the windscreen, on a sticker in the door frame, and in the registration document. Check that the characters match in all the places you can see them.
The first three characters are the WMI, which points to the manufacturer and country. We do not yet have a WMI code mapped to BAW, so we cannot give you one to look for.
Look at the 10th character. P stands for 2023, R for 2024, S for 2025 and T for 2026, which covers the years in our Pony data so far.
It cannot show accidents, mileage, theft or previous owners, because none of that is stored in the VIN. It also reads only the VIN, so it says nothing about the condition of a particular car.
Make sure the VIN on the car matches the papers, that it has 17 characters and contains no I, O or Q, and that the model year character fits the car in front of you. Then ask for the service and ownership records and have the car inspected in person.