Enter the 17-character VIN of your Renault 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.
Type or paste a Renault VIN into the decoder and it reads the 17 characters for you: the manufacturer, the model year and the country where the car was built. It costs nothing and needs no registration. Our Renault data covers 71 models, from the early numbered ones such as the 4, 5 and 16 to the Clio, Captur, Espace, Kangoo and Austral, plus 4 E-Tech and 5 E-Tech.
A VIN does not record accidents, mileage, theft or previous owners, so the decoder cannot tell you any of that. That information comes from a paid vehicle history report.
Pick a Renault model to see how its VIN works.
The first three characters are the World Manufacturer Identifier, or WMI. For Renault we recognise VF1, VF2 and VF6, and all three belong to France. So a VIN that begins with VF1 is read as a Renault built in France. These are the codes we map to the brand, and the list is not exhaustive.
Characters 4 to 8 form the descriptor section, where the maker encodes details of the vehicle. Character 9 is a check digit. North America requires it, but many European VINs fill it differently, so a French-built Renault should not be judged by that position alone. Character 11 marks the plant, and characters 12 to 17 are the serial number.
The model year sits in character 10. A K there stands for 2019 and an L for 2020, while a digit such as 7 means 2007. The letters repeat every 30 years, so a B could mean 2011 or 1981, and the rest of the VIN helps you decide. Our version data runs from 1956 to the present, but the 17-character format applies to cars built since 1981. The oldest cars in our data, from before that, will not follow it.
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 printed on the vehicle's registration documents and marked on the car itself. The exact spot varies between models, so check both and make sure the two match.
The first three characters are the WMI. We map VF1, VF2 and VF6 to Renault, and all three point to France as the country of manufacture. A VIN starting with other characters is not a problem, since our list of codes is not complete.
Look at the 10th character. For example, K means 2019, L means 2020 and P means 2023. The decoder translates this for you when you enter the full VIN.
It reads only the VIN, so it shows manufacturer, model year and country of manufacture. Accident damage, mileage, theft records and the number of owners are not stored in the VIN.
Compare the VIN on the paperwork with the one on the car, and confirm it has 17 characters without the letters I, O or Q. Then look at the body, the engine and the service records, and take a test drive.