Enter the 17-character VIN of your Moskvich 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 the 17-character VIN of a Moskvich and the decoder reads what is encoded in it: the manufacturer, the model year and the country of manufacture. Our data for the brand covers 19 models, from the 400, 401 and 402 to the 2141, Knyaz Vladimir and Yuriy Dolgorukiy, with model years from 1946 to 2023. Body styles in the data are Wagon, Sedan and Hatchback, and the highest power figure we hold is 174 hp.
The decoder does not show accidents, mileage, theft records or previous owners, because none of that is stored in a VIN. That information comes from a paid vehicle history report. The decoder itself is free and needs no registration.
Pick a Moskvich model to see how its VIN works.
The first three characters of a VIN are the World Manufacturer Identifier, or WMI. It tells you who built the vehicle and in which country. For Moskvich we currently have no WMI codes mapped, so there is no list of codes or countries to show here. That is a gap in our list and says nothing about your VIN. If yours starts with characters we do not recognise, the decoder simply has less to report for that part.
Characters 4 to 8 describe the vehicle, character 9 is the check digit, character 10 gives the model year, character 11 the assembly plant, and characters 12 to 17 are the serial number. The check digit is required in North America, while many European VINs fill that position differently. Letters I, O and Q are never used in a VIN, so if you read one of them on a plate, look again: it is a 1 or a 0.
The model year character is the easiest to check by hand. For a Moskvich built in 1990 it is L, for 2001 it is the digit 1, and for 2023, the last year in our data, it is P. The standard 17-character VIN applies to cars built since 1981. Our model years start in 1946, so for the earliest cars in the range you may find a shorter or differently formatted number, which the decoder cannot read.
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.
On most cars it is stamped on a plate at the base of the windshield, on a label in the door frame, and printed in the registration papers. Compare all of them, and note that a car built before 1981 may not have a 17-character number at all.
The first three characters are the WMI, which identifies the manufacturer and the country. We have no WMI codes mapped to Moskvich at the moment, so we cannot list any here, and a VIN that begins differently is not a reason for concern.
Look at the tenth character. L means 1990, 1 means 2001 and P means 2023, which is the latest year in our Moskvich data. This reading only works for VINs of cars built since 1981.
It cannot tell you about accidents, mileage, theft or earlier owners, since a VIN does not contain them. It also does not confirm the condition of the car or which trim or engine a given 2138 or 2141 has.
Make sure the VIN on the car matches the one in the papers and that the plate and stampings look untouched. Ask for service records and inspect the body and mechanics in person, or have someone who knows the model do it.