Enter the 17-character VIN of your BYD 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 BYD decoder reads the manufacturer, the model year and the country of manufacture straight from the code. Our data covers 25 BYD models, from the Atto 3, Dolphin and Seagull to the Han, Tang, Song Max and the older F3 and F6, with model years running from 2005 to the present. The decoder is free and needs no registration.
A VIN carries nothing about accidents, mileage, theft or previous owners. That information comes from a paid vehicle history report, so use the decoder to confirm what the car is and look further only if you need its past.
The first three characters are the World Manufacturer Identifier, or WMI. For BYD we recognise two of them, LC0 and LGX, and both belong to China. A VIN that begins with one of these will be matched to BYD and to China as the country of manufacture. Our list of codes is not exhaustive, so a VIN starting with something else is not a problem in itself. It just may not be one we map to this brand.
Characters 4 to 8 describe the vehicle, and character 9 is a check digit. North American VINs must have a valid one, while many European VINs fill that position differently. Character 10 gives the model year. An L there means 2020 and a P means 2023, so a BYD built in 2023 would show P in tenth place. Character 11 identifies the plant, and characters 12 to 17 are the serial number of that particular car.
Letters I, O and Q never appear in a VIN, because they are too easily mistaken for 1 and 0. If you typed one of them, check the number against the registration document and try again. The decoder can place a car among our body styles, which are SUV, hatchback, sedan, convertible and van, though the model year and manufacturer are the details it reads most directly from the code.
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.
Look at the registration document first, then check the car itself, usually at the base of the windscreen on the driver's side or on a label in the door frame. The number on the car and the number on the papers should be identical.
The first three characters are the WMI, which names the manufacturer and the country. We map LC0 and LGX to BYD, and both codes belong to China. The list is not complete, so other starting characters are not a warning sign.
Look at the tenth character. A letter or digit there stands for the year, for example L for 2020 or P for 2023. Our BYD data begins at 2005, which is shown by the digit 5 in that position.
It cannot show accidents, mileage, theft records or the number of owners, because none of that is stored in a VIN. It also tells you nothing about the car's condition or whether the odometer reading is right.
Compare the VIN on the car, the papers and the decoder result, and make sure the model year matches what the seller says. Then inspect the car in person and ask for service records, since the decoder only confirms the identity of the vehicle.