Enter the 17-character VIN of your Opel 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 Opel decoder tells you three things: the manufacturer, the model year and the country of manufacture. It needs no registration and costs nothing. Our Opel data covers 40 models, from Adam, Agila and Ascona to Vivaro, Zafira and Zafira Life, with model years from 1957 to the present.
A VIN does not contain accidents, mileage, theft records or previous owners, so the decoder cannot show them. That information comes from a paid vehicle history report.
Pick a Opel model to see how its VIN works.
The first three characters are the WMI, the world manufacturer identifier. The code we map to Opel is W0L, and it belongs to Germany. Our list of codes is not complete, so a VIN that starts differently is not a problem in itself. W0L is simply the one we recognise for the brand.
Characters 4 to 8 describe the vehicle, and character 9 is a check digit. North American VINs must use it, but many European VINs fill that position in their own way, so do not treat it as a pass or fail test on an Opel. Character 10 gives the model year. For example, L stands for 2020 and M for 2021, while K stands for 1989. Character 11 marks the plant, and characters 12 to 17 are the serial number.
The letters I, O and Q never appear in a VIN, which avoids confusion with 1 and 0. The 17-character format applies to cars built since 1981. Some of the older Opel models in our data, such as the Kadett or the Rekord, date from before that, so a car of that age may not carry a VIN in this form.
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.
Check the registration documents first, then the car itself. The VIN is commonly stamped at the base of the windscreen or on a door pillar, though the exact spot can vary by model and year.
W0L is the WMI code we map to Opel, and it belongs to Germany. It identifies the manufacturer only, not the model or the plant. Other codes may also exist for the brand, because our list is not complete.
Look at the 10th character. A letter such as K, L or M, or a digit such as 9, maps to a specific year, for example K for 1989 and L for 2020. The decoder reads this character for you.
It does not show accidents, mileage, theft status or the number of owners, because none of that is stored in the VIN. It also does not tell you the condition of a particular car.
Compare the VIN on the car with the one in the documents and in the advert, then decode it to see whether the model year and country match what the seller says. Ask for service records, and inspect the car in person or have it inspected.